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CJWnfcon (preee §ertee 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST 



E. A. FREEMAN 



HENRY FROWDE, M.A. 

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 




LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK 



Clacwnbon l§nm Stories 



A SHORT HISTORY 



OF THE 



NORMAN CONQUEST 



ENGLAND 



EDWARD A, FREEMAN, D.C.l« LL.D. 

Late Regius Professor of Modern History in the 
University of Oxford 



$ *fjorb 

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

M DCCC XCVI 
[All rights reserved] 



OXFORD I PRINTED AT THC CLARENDON! PRESS 
P,Y HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 



*•! i o C -V 



CONTENTS. 

chap. PAGE 

I. INTRODUCTION I 

II. THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS .... 6 

III. THE EARLY DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND 

NORMANS . . . . . . . .16 

IV. THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM . . . • . 3° 

V. HAROLD EARL AND KING 39 

VI. THE TWO HAROLDS 55 

VII. THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM .... 64 

VIII. THE GREAT BATTLE 76 

IX. HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING ... 86 

X. HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM . 93 

XI. KING WILLIAM'S LATER WARS 1 08 

XII. HOW KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND . . . Il8 
XII. THE TWO WILLIAMS ....... 128 

XIV. THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST . .134 

XV. THE LATER HISTORY 148 



INTRODUCTION. 

I have here told, in the shape of a primer, the same 
tale which I have already told in five large volumes. I 
have only to say that, though the tale told is the same, 
yet the little book is not an abridgement of the large one, 
but strictly the same tale told afresh. I shall be well 
pleased if I am able some day to tell the same tale on a 
third and intermediate scale. 

SOMERLEAZE, WELLS, 

June 5, 1880. 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST 
OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

1. Meaning of the Norman Conquest.— By the Nor- 
man Conquest of England we understand that series of 
events during the latter part of the eleventh century by 
which a Norman Duke was set on the throne of England, 
and was enabled to hand down the crown of England to 
his descendants.^ The Norman Conquest of England does 
in truth mean a great deal more than the mere transfer of 
the crown from one prince or one family to another, or 
even than the transfer of the crown from a prince born in 
the land to a prince who came from beyond sea. It means 
a great number of changes of all kinds which have made 
the history and state of our land ever since to be very dif- 
ferent from what they would have been if the Norman Con- 
quest had never happened. For the Norman Duke could 
not be set on the throne of England without making many 
changes of all kinds in the state of England. But the fact 
that a Norman Duke was set on the throne of England is 
the central point of the whole story of the Norman Conquest 
of England. That story must tell how William Duke of the 
Normans became William King of the English. It must also 
tell how it came about that the Norman Duke could be made 
King of the English ; that is, it must tell something of the 
causes which led to the Norman Conquest. It must also tell of 

7* B 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

the changes which came of the way in which the Nor- 
man Duke was made King of the English. That is, it must 
tell something of the effects which followed on the Norman 
Conquest. And, in order to make the causes of the Conquest 
rightly understood, it must tell something of the state of 
things among both the Normans and the English before the 
Norman Conquest of England happened. And, in order 
to make the effects of the Conquest rightly understood, it 
must go on to tell something of the times for some while 
after the Conquest itself, that we may see the way in which 
the changes which followed on the Conquest were wrought, 
and how they have had an effect on English history ever 
since. 

2. Meaning of the word Conquest. — We may now 
ask a little further what is the meaning of the word conquest, 
whether there can be more kinds of conquest than one, 
and whether the Norman Conquest of England has any- 
thing about it which is either like or unlike any other con- 
quest. Now the word conquest strictly means the winning 
or getting of anything, whether rightly or not, or whether 
by force or not. It might mean, for instance, the win- 
ning of land, whether a kingdom or anything smaller, by 
strength of war, or it might mean winning it by sentence 
of law. And this first meaning of the word has something 
specially to do with the Norman Conquest of England, 
For when King William was called the Conqueror, it did not 
at first mean that he had won the crown of England by 
force; for he claimed it as his own by law. But though 
he claimed it as his own by law, he had in fact to win it by 
force ; we can therefore rightly speak of the Conquest and the 
Conqueror in the sense which those words now commonly 
bear, that of winning a land and the rule over it by strength 
of war. For, though Duke William claimed the crown as 



NATURE OF THE CONQUEST. 3 

his own by law, he could get it only by coming into our 
land with an army and overthrowing and killing our king in 
fight; and when he had got the crown and was called King, 
he had still to win the land bit by bit, often by hard fighting, 
before he had really got the whole kingdom into his hands. 
The Norman Conquest of England was therefore a conquest 
in the best known meaning of the word ; it was the winning 
of the land by strength of war. 

3. Different kinds of Conquests. — Now this fact that 
Duke William claimed the English crown as his own by 
law, and yet had to win it in battle at the head of a foreign 
army, had a great deal to do with the special character 
of the Norman Conquest of England, and with the effect 
which that Conquest has had on the history of England 
ever since. There have been at different times conquests 
of very different kinds. Sometimes a whole people has 
gone from one land to another ; they have settled by force 
in a land where other men were dwelling, and have killed 
or driven out the men whom they found in the land, or 
have let them live on as bondmen in their own land. 
Here is mere force without any pretence of right, and a 
conquest like this can happen only among people who are 
quite uncivilized, as we English were when we first came 
to the island of Britain. The Norman Conquest was 
nothing at all like this ; the English were neither killed 
nor driven out nor made slaves, but went on living in 
their own land as before. The Norman Conquest was, so 
to speak, less of a conquest than conquests of this kind. 
But it was much more of a conquest than some other con- 
quests of another kind have been. In some conquests of 
later times all that has happened has been something of 
this kind. A king has won a kingdom by force, or he 
has added some new lands to the kingdom which he had 

B 2 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

before. The changes made by such a conquest may be 
only what we may call political changes, changes in the 
government and most likely to some extent in the law. Such 
a conquest may be made with very little change which 
directly touches private men; it may be made without 
turning anybody out of his house or land. Indeed many 
men may even keep on the public offices which they held 
before. Now the Norman Conquest of England, though 
not so much as the other kind of conquest, was much more 
than this. For though the English nation was not killed or 
driven out, yet very many Englishmen had their lands, 
houses, and offices taken from them and given to strangers. 
And this happened specially with the greatest estates and 
the highest offices. These passed almost wholly to strangers. 
It was not merely that a foreign king won the English 
crown, but that his foreign followers displaced Englishmen 
in nearly all the highest places in the English kingdom. 

4. Nature of the Norman Conquest. — Now this 
special character of the Norman Conquest of England, as 
being more than one kind of conquest and less than ano- 
ther, came chiefly of the fact that a prince who. claimed the 
English crown by law did in truth win it by force of arms. 
No one in England supported his claim ; he had to make 
it good at the head of a foreign army. And when he had 
thus won the crown, he had at once to make himself safe 
in the strange land which he had conquered, and to re- 
ward those who had helped him to conquer it. He there- 
fore very largely took away the lands and offices of the 
English who had fought against him, and gave them to the 
Normans and other strangers who had fought for him. But, 
as he claimed to be king reigning according to law, he gave 
them those lands and offices to be held of the English 
crown, according to English law. From this, and from many 



CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE CONQUEST. 5 

other causes, it came about that the descendants of the Nor- 
mans who settled in England step by step become, as we 
may say, Englishmen, if not by blood yet by adoption. For 
several generations after the Conquest the high places of the 
land, the great estates and chief offices, were almost always 
held by men of Norman or other foreign blood. But in a very 
few generations these men learned to speak English and to 
have the feelings of Englishmen. The effect of the Norman 
Conquest of England was neither to make England subject 
to Normandy nor to make it a Norman land. It gave to 
England a much higher place in the world in general than 
it had held before. At home, Englishmen were neither 
driven out nor turned into Normans, but the Normans in 
England were turned into Englishmen. But in this work 
of turning themselves into Englishmen, they made, bit by 
bit, many changes in the laws of England, and in the lan- 
guage, manners, and thoughts of Englishmen. 

5. Causes of the Norman Conquest. — We have thus 
seen what kind of a work the Norman Conquest of England 
was, as compared with other conquests of our own and of 
other lands. It is well thoroughly to understand this in a 
general way before we begin to tell our tale at all at length. 
And before we come to tell the tale of the Conquest itself, we 
must try clearly to understand what kind of people both Eng- 
lishmen and Normans were at the time when the Normans 
crossed the sea to conquer England. We must see what 
were the real causes, and what were the immediate occasions, 
which led to an event which seems so strange as that a Nor- 
man Duke should give out that he had a right to the English 
crown, and that he should actually be able to win it by war. 
And to do this, we must run lightly over the history both of 
the English and of the Normans down to the time when they 
first began to have any dealings with one another. . 



CHAPTER II. 

The English and the Normans. 

1. The English, and Norman Settlements. — When 
the Normans crossed the sea to conquer England, the Eng- 
lish had been much longer settled in the land which from 
them was called England than the Normans had been in 
the land which from them was called Normandy. It was 
in the fifth century that the English began to settle in 
those parts of the isle of Britain which from them took the 
name of England. But it was not till the beginning of 
the tenth century that the Normans settled in that part of 
the mainland of Gaul which from them took the name of 
Normandy. The English had thus been living for six 
hundred years in their land, when the Normans had been 
living only about a hundred and fifty years in theirs. The 
English therefore in the eleventh century were more tho- 
roughly at home in England than the Normans were in 
Normandy. Among the English the adventurous spirit of 
new settlers had spent itself in the long wars with the 
Welsh which established the English dominion in Britain. 
But in the Normans that spirit was still quite fresh. Their 
conquest of England was only one, though it was the 
greatest, of several conquests in foreign lands made by the 
Normans about this time. Both were brave; but the 
courage of the English was of the passive kind with which 
men defend their own homes ; the courage of the Noumans 



THE ENGLISH IN BRITAIN. J 

of the restless, ambitious, kind with which men go forth 
to seek for themselves new homes. 

2. The English in Britain. — The first time when the 
affairs of Normandy and of England came to have any- 
thing to do with one another was about eighty years before 
the Norman Conquest of England. At that time all Eng- . 
land was united into one kingdom under the kings of the I 
house of the West-Saxons. In the course of about a hun- 
dred years after their first landing, the English had founded 
seven or eight chief kingdoms, besides smaller states, at 
the expense of the Welsh, occupying all the eastern and 
central parts of Britain. Among these states four stand 
out as of special importance, as having at different times 
seemed likely to win the chief power over all their neigh- 
bours. These were Kent, Wessex, Mercia, and Northum- 
berland. The power of Kent came early to an end, but 
for a long time it seemed very doubtful to which of the 
other three the chief power would come. Sometimes one 
had the upper hand, and sometimes another. But at last, in 
the early years of the ninth century, the West-Saxon king 
Ecgberht won the chief power over all the English king- 
doms and over all the Welsh in the southern part of the 
island. The northern parts of the island, inhabited by the 
Picts, the Scots, and the northern W r elsh, remained quite 
independent. And in the English and southern Welsh 
kingdoms kings went on reigning, though the West-Saxon 
king was their /0n/*and they were his men. That is, though 
he had nothing to do with the internal affairs of their king- 
doms, they were to follow him in matters of peace and war, 
and at all events never to fight against him. Long before 
the chief lordship thus came into the hands of the W 
Saxon kings, all the English kingdoms had embraced Chris- 
tianity. Kent was the first to do so ; its conversion began 



8 THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS. 

at the end of the sixth century (597), and all England had 
become Christian before the end of the seventh. 

3. The Danes in England. — Not long after the West- 
Saxon kings had won the chief power over the other 
English kingdoms, a series of events began which made a 
great change in England, and which was of a truth the 
beginning of the Normans as a people. The people of 
Scandinavia, the Danes and the Northmen or Norwegians, 
began about this time, first to plunder and then to settle 
both in England and in Gaul. They were still heathens, 
just as the English had been when they first landed in 
Britain. Their invasions were therefore the more frightful, 
and they took special delight in destroying the churches 
and monasteries. In England all the latter part of the 
ninth century is taken up with the story of their ravaging 
and settlements. They settled in eastern and northern 
England; they overran Wessex for a moment, but there 
they were defeated and driven out by the famous King 
Alfred. They had upset the other English kingdoms, so 
that Wessex was now the only independent English and 
Christian kingdom. Alfred could therefore treat with them 
as the one English king. The Danish king Guthrum was 
baptized, and a line was drawn between his dominions and 
those of Alfred, leaving to Alfred all Wessex and the other 
lands south of the Thames and all south-western Mercia. 
Thus Alfred lost as an over-lord ; but his own kingdom was 
enlarged ; and the coming of the Danes, by uprooting the 
other English kingdoms, opened the way for the West- 
Saxon Kings to win the whole of England. This was done 
under Alfred's successors, Edward, JEthelstan, Edmund, and 
Eadred, in the first half of the tenth century. After long 
fighting, all the English kingdoms were won from the Danes 
and were united to the kingdom of the West-Saxons. And 



THE NORMANS IN GAUL. 9 

the Kings of the English, as they were now called, held the 
lordship over the other kingdoms of Britain, Scottish and 
Welsh. 

4. The Northmen in Gaul. — While this was going on 
in Britain, something of much the same kind was going on 
in Gaul. Throughout the ninth century the Northmen were 
plundering in Gaul, sailing up the rivers, burning towns and 
monasteries, and sometimes making small settlements here 
and there. But in the beginning of the tenth century they 
made a much greater and more lasting settlement. A colony 
of Northmen settled in that part of Gaul which from them 
took the name of Normandy, and there founded a new 
European state. This was in the year 912. The great 
dominion of the Franks under Charles the Great was now 
quite broken up into four kingdoms. That of the West- 
Franks, called Karolingia, because several of its kings bore 
the name of Charles, took in the greater part of Gaul. The 
crown was more than once disputed between the kings of 
the house of Charles the Great, who reigned at Laon, and 
the Dukes of the French, whose capital was Paris, and whose 
duchy of Fra?ue was the greatest state of Gaul north of the 
Loire. Some of these dukes themselves wore the crown, and, 
when they did not, they were much more powerful than the 
kings at Laon. But whether the king reigned at Paris or 
Laon, the princes south of the Loire, though they called 
themselves his men, took very little heed to him. Now when 
the kingdom was at Laon, the king was pretty well out of 
the way of invaders who came by sea ; but no part of 
Gaul was more exposed than the duchy o{ Franco, with its 
long seaboard on the Channel, and with the mouth of the 
river Seine making a highway for the Northmen up to Rouen 
and Paris. Paris was several times besieged in the ninth 
century; and now at the beginning of the tenth, the coasts 



10 THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS. 

of Gaul, especially the northern coast, were ravaged by a 
great pirate-leader named Rolf — called in Latin Rollo and 
in French Rou — who had got possession of Rouen and 
seemed disposed to settle in the land. 

5. Settlement of Rolf. — At this time the kingdom of the 
West-Franks was held by Charles, called the Simple, who 
reigned at Laon. Robert, Duke of the French, was his man, 
but a man much more powerful than his lord. But no prince 
in Gaul had suffered so much from Rolfs ravages. So King 
Charles and Duke Robert agreed that the best thing to be 
done was very much what Alfred had done with Guthrum, 
to grant to Rolf part of the land as his own, if he would be 
baptized and hold it as the man of the king. So Rolf was 
baptized with Duke Robert to his godfather, and he took 
his name in baptism, though he was still commonly spoken 
of as Rolf. And he received the city of Rouen and the land 
from the Epte to the Dive, as a fief from King Charles, and 
became his man. So Rolf and his followers settled down in the 
land which from them was called the Land of the Northmen 
and afterwards the Duchy of Normandy. It was enlarged in 
Rolfs own time by the addition of the city of Bayeux and its 
territory, and in the time of his son William Longsword, by 
the addition of the peninsular land of Coutances, called the 
Cdteniin, and the land of Avranches to the south of it. The 
Norman dukes claimed also to be lords over the counties of 
Britanny and Maine ; but they could never really make good 
their power there. But the whole north coast of the duchy 
of France now became the duchy of Normandy. Paris and 
its prince, sometimes king, sometimes only duke, were quite 
cut off from the sea by the land of the Norman dukes at 
Rouen. 

6. The Early Norman Dukes. — In this lay the begin- 
ning of the strife between Normandy and France, which, 



THE NORMAN DUCHY. II 

when the same princes came to rule over England and Nor- 
mandy, grew into the long wars between France and England. 
The princes and people of France never forgot that they had 
lost the great city of Rouen and all the fair land of Nor- 
mandy. But King Charles at Laon gained by the duchy of 
France being in this way weakened and cut in two. He 
gained too because, when Rolf swore to be his man and be 
faithful to him, he really kept his oath. For when, first Duke 
Robert of France (922), and then Duke Rudolf of Burgundy 
(923), rose up against King Charles and were made kings in 
his stead, both Rolf and his son William after him clave to the 
lord to whom Rolf had first sworn. Rolf too ruled his land 
well, and put down thieves and murderers, so that the story 
ran that he hung up a jewel in a tree, and no man dared to 
take it. Under him and his son William Longsword (927-943) 
most of the Normans gradually became Christians, and left off 
their Scandinavian tongue and learned to speak French. By 
the end of William's reign nothing but French was spoken at 
Rouen ; but in the lands to the west, which had been won 
more lately, men still spoke Danish, and many still clave to 
the gods of the North. This heathen and Danish party 
more than once revolted, and, after the death of Duke Wil- 
liam, they even for a while got hold of the young Duke 
Richard and made him join in their heathen worship. About 
the same time new settlements from the North were made in 
the Cotentin. But Duke Richard presently commended him- 
self to Hugh the Great, Duke of the French; that is, he 
became his man instead of the King's man. During the 
rest of his reign the duchies of France and Normandy were 
in close alliance, and Richard had a chief hand in giving the 
kingdom to Hugh Capet, the son of Hugh the Great. 

7. Manners of the Normans. — During Richard's reign 
then the Normans were getting more and more French in 



12 THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS. 

their language and manners/ And more than this, it was 
their help which took the crown of Karolingia from the 
German kings at Laon, and gave it to the French kings at 
Paris. Thus the Dukes of the French became Kings of the 
French, and, as they extended their power, the name of their 
duchy of France was gradually spread over nearly all Karol- 
ingia, and over the greater part of the rest of Gaul. In the 
time of the next Duke, Richard the Good (996-1026), there 
was a great revolt of the peasants in Normandy. These 
were most likely largely of Celtic descent, while all the great 
landowners were Normans. And it is also noticed of this 
duke that he began to draw new distinctions among his sub- 
jects, and would have none but gentlemen about him. This is 
almost the first time that we hear that word. The peasants 
were put down, and the gentlemen had the upper hand. 
The Normans had now quite changed from the ways of their 
Northern forefathers. From seafaring men they had turned 
into the best horsemen in the world. The Norman gentle- 
man, mounted on his horse, with his shield like a kite, his 
long lance, and sometimes his sword or mace-at-arms, be- 
came the best of all fighting-men of his own kind. And, 
now that they were fully settled in their own land, the Nor- 
mans began, quite in the spirit of their forefathers, though in 
another garb, to go all over the world to seek for fighting 
wherever fighting was to be had. Often religious zeal was 
mingled with love of fighting. Some went to help the 
Christians of Spain against the Saracens, and others, later in 
the century, went to help the Eastern Emperors against the 
Turks. But their greatest exploits of all were done in the 
two greatest of European islands, one the greatest in the 
Mediterranean, the other the greatest in the Ocean, Sicily 
and Britain. 

8. The Normans in Italy and Sicily. — We shall 



CONQUESTS OF THE NORMANS. 1 3 

come presently to their doings in our own island. But it 
is well to remark that the Norman Conquest of England 
was no doubt largely suggested by the Norman exploits in 
southern Italy and Sicily. These went on during nearly 
the whole of the eleventh century; but they began under 
Richard the Good. They were not enterprises of the Nor- 
man dukes, or of the Norman state in any way, but of 
private Norman gentlemen who went out to seek their for- 
tunes. They founded more than one principality in southern 
Italy, but the most famous settlement was that made by the 
sons of a simple Norman gentleman called Tancred of 
Hauteville. They conquered all southern Italy, putting an 
end to the dominion of the Eastern Emperors, and they got 
the Pope to invest them with what they conquered. Then 
Robert Wiscard son of Tancred became Duke of Apulia. 
He then went on to attack the Eastern Emperor beyond the 
Hadriatic, and actually held Durazzo and other possessions 
there for some while. Thence he came back to help the 
Pope against the Western Emperor Henry the Fourth, so 
that he defeated both Emperors in one year. His brother 
Roger, partly with his help, conquered all Sicily from the 
Mahometans. He was only called Greai Count; but his 
son, another Roger, became the first King of Sicily. All 
this began before the Norman Conquest of England, and 
was going on at the same time. We speak of it here to 
show what manner of men the Normans of the eleventh 
century were. When private men could found duchies and 
kingdoms and put Emperors to flight, we might indeed look 
for great things whenever a Duke of the Normans at the 
head of his whole people should put forth his full strength. 

9. The Danish Conquest of England. — Meanwhile 
the Danish invasions of England, which had been put an 
end to by the great kings who followed Alfred, began 



14 THE ENGLISH AND THE NORMANS. 

again in the last twenty years of the tenth century, and 
went on for thirty-six years (980-1016) till England was 
altogether conquered. But these were invasions of another 
kind from the earlier Danish invasions. In the ninth cen- 
tury both England and Denmark were still made up of 
various settlements, more or less distinct, and this or that 
party of Danish adventurers came to settle in this or that 
part of England. But in the course of the tenth century 
Denmark, like England, had been joined together into one 
kingdom; and the invasions now took the form of an 
enterprise of a king of all Denmark trying to win the 
crown of all England. But, though England was now joined 
under one king, its different parts were not yet thoroughly 
welded together, and it needed a great king to make the 
whole force of the kingdom act together. In the former 
part of the tenth century England had had such great kings ; 
but when the Danish invasions began again, she had a king, 
iEthelred, of quite another kind. His name means noble 
rede or counsel, but men called him the Unready or man 
without rede. For, though he sometimes had what we may 
call fits of energy, they were commonly in the wrong place ; 
and during his long reign it was only once towards the very 
end that he showed himself as at all a national leader against 
the enemy. Generally the Danes landed at this or that 
point ; then, if the men of that shire had a brave leader, a 
good fight was made against them; but there was no general 
resistance. The king thought more of giving the Danes 
money to go away than of fighting them. And of course 
this only led them to come again for more money. In this 
way one shire after another was harried; the land was weak- 
ened bit by bit, till the Danes could march where they 
.pleased, even in the inland parts. At last, in 10 13, the 
Danish king Swen or Swegen was able to subdue all Eng- 



THE DANES IN ENGLAND. Ij 

land, and to make the English acknowledge him as king. 
King jEthelred had to flee from the land and to take shelter 
beyond the sea. And his wife and her children had to seek 
for shelter beyond the sea along with him. By this time the 
story of Normandy and the story of England are beginning 
to be joined into one. For ^Ethelred's wife was a Norman 
woman, and the land in which he and she sought shelter was 
her own land of Normandy. We must now therefore go 
back a little way in our story, and see how the Normans 
and the English had already come to have dealings with one 
another, in w r ar and in peace. 



CHAPTER III. 

The early dealings between English and Normans. 

1. Early Dealings between England and Gaul.— Up 

to the tenth century the English had very little to do with 
their neighbours in Gaul. The English kings commonly 
married the daughters of other English kings, or, after 
there was only one kingdom, the daughters of their own 
great men. It was somewhat more common for English 
kings to give their daughters to foreign kings; but even 
this did not happen very often. But in the days of Edward 
the Elder and his son iEthelstan several of Edward's 
daughters were married to the chief princes of Western 
Europe. Among them one married King Charles of Laon 
and another Duke Hugh of Paris. Thus King Lewis the 
son of Charles was sister's son to the English kings JEthel- 
stan and Edmund. They played a certain part in the affairs 
of Gaul on behalf of their nephew, and, as Lewis was an 
enemy of the Normans, it may be that some ill-feeling 
between the English and the Normans began thus early. 
But there was no open quarrel till the last years of the tenth 
century, when iEthelred was King of the English, and 
when the long reign of Richard the Fearless in Normandy 
was coming near to its end. 

2. The first Quarrel between England and Nor- 
mandy .—The first time when Englishmen and Normans are 
distinctly recorded to have met as enemies was in a quarrel 



JETHELRED AND RICHARD. i; 

which arose out of the Danish invasions of England. In 991 

d and Duke Richard had a quarrel, and I 
made friends by Pope John the Fifteenth. The ground 
uarrel seems to have been that the Danes had been 
allowed to sell the plunder of England in the Norman 
ut nine years later we hear of another quarrel. 
The Norman writers say that .Ethelred sent a fleet with 
orders to harry the whole land and to bring Duke Richard 
before him with his hands tied behind his back. Then they 
tell us that the English fleet did land in the Cotentin, but 
that they were driven back by the men of the land, with the 
women helping them, without any help from Duke Richard. v 
We need not believe these details, any more than we I 

ve the details of many other stories of these times; but 
there must be some ground for the tale. At any rate there 
is no doubt that jEthelred in 1002 married Emma, the 
liter of Duke Richard. This was most likely when 
peace was made, and some say that JEthelred went over to 
Normandy himself to bring home his bride. 

3. The Marriage of ^thelred and Emma. — This 
marriage marks one of the main stages in the events which 
led to the Norman Conquest. First of all, it was, as we 
have seen, an unusual thing for an English king to marry 
a foreign wife. In all the time that the English had been 
in Britain it had, as far as we know, happened only t\ 
before. This is one of many things which show tl. 
land was now getting to have more to do with 
lands than before. Secondly, by reason of this man 
Normans and other French-speaking people now began for 
the first time to settle in England and to hold En 
Emma now became Lady of the English, lor by the custom 

of the W( was called I . but 

. . . , and she changed her name from the 

C 



1 8 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

the English ^lfgifu. As the King's wife she received a gift 
from her husband. This gift consisted of lands and towns, 
and among them the city of Exeter. Here the Lady set one 
Hugh, whom the English call the French churl, as her reeve. 
When the Danes attacked Exeter in 1003, Hugh, if he did 
not actually betray the city, at least made no good defence, 
and Exeter was taken. Such was the beginning of Norman 
command in England. Thirdly, for the first time in the 
West-Saxon house, the children of a king were half-strangers 
by birth, and what followed made them strangers yet more 
thoroughly. And fourthly, the reigning houses of England 
and Normandy now became of kin to one another, and it 
was this which first put it into the head of Duke William 
that he might perhaps succeed to the throne of his English 
kinsfolk. 

4. The Marriage of Cmit and Emma. — Emma, the 
Norman Lady, now becomes a very important person in 
English history. She was the wife of two kings and the 
mother of two kings. Her first husband iEthelred had 
not to stay very long in his banishment in Normandy. 
For the next year Swegen the Da.nish king died. Then 
the Danes chose his younger son Cnut or Canute to be 
king in England, while his elder son Harold reigned in 
Denmark. War followed between Cnut and iEthelred, in 
which at last^Ethelred showed some little spirit, but in which 
the great leader on the English side was his son Edmund, 
called Ironside. He was not the son of Emma, whose chil- 
dren, Alfred, Edward, and Godgifu, were still quite young, 
but of an earlier wife of JEthelred. Then in the beginning 
of 10 1 6 JEthelred died. Many of the English now thought 
that it was best to accept Cnut as king; so he was chosen 
at a meeting at Southampton, while Edmund was chosen in 
another meeting in London. The English gradually joined 






CNUT'S CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ig 

Edmund; he was a strong and brave captain, very unlike 
his father ; six battles were fought in the year ; London was 
three times besieged by Cnut; but in the last battle, at 
Assandiin in Essex, Edmund was defeated by the treason 
of his brother-in-law Eadric. Still he was so powerful that it 
was agreed to divide the kingdom, Cnut reigning in the 
North and Edmund in the South. But before the year was 
out, Edmund died, and many thought that Eadric, some 
that Cnut, had brought about his death. Then at the 
Christmas of 1016-1017 Cnut was a third time chosen king 
over all England, and one of the first things that he did was 
to send to Normandy for the widowed Lady Emma, though 
she was many years older than he was. She came over; 
she married the new king, and was again Lady of the 
English. She bore Cnut two children, Harthacnut and 
Gunhild. Her three children by JEthelred were left in 
Normandy. She seems not to have cared at all for them 
or for the memory of ^Ethelred; her whole love passed to 
her new husband and her new children. Thus it came 
about that the children of ^Ethelred were brought up in 
Normandy, and had the feelings of Normans rather than of 
Englishmen, a thing which again greatly helped the Norman 
Conquest. 

5. The Reign of Cnut. — Though Cnut came in as a 
foreign conqueror, yet he reigned as an English king. He 
was chosen when he was quite young ; England was his first 
kingdom ; and, though he soon inherited the kingdom of 
Denmark and afterwards conquered Norway, yet England 
was always the land which he loved best. He began harshly, 
banishing or putting to death every one whom he thought at 
all dangerous, especially such of the kinsfolk of iEthelred as 
he could get at. Emma's two boys were safe in Normandy, 
perhaps safer with their uncle Duke Richard— that is Richard 

c 2 



20 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

the Good, son of Richard the Fearless, who reigned from 996 
to 1026 — than they would have been with their mother in 
England. But when Cnut was fully established on the throne, 
he left off this harshness ; he ruled the English according to 
their own laws, and gradually got rid of the Danes who had 
come with him, and to whom he had given earldoms and other 
high offices. These places were now again given to English- 
men, and the chief among them was Godwine, Earl of the 
West-Saxons. Under Cnut England became the centre of a 
great Northern Empire, such as was not seen before or after. 
His father Swegen had been baptized in his childhood ; but he 
cast away Christianity and became a heathen again. His son 
Cnut was therefore brought up as a heathen, but he was 
baptized while still a young man by the name of Lambert, 
though he was always called Cnut, just as Rolf was always 
called Rolf and never Robert. He made the pilgrimage to 
Rome, and was there received with great worship by the 
Pope and by the Emperor Conrad, who came to be crowned 
while he was there. All his wars were in the North, in 
Scotland, Norway, and Sweden. He was always on good 
terms with Duke Richard of Normandy ; but things changed 
in this respect before the end of Cnut's reign. When 
Richard the Good died, he was succeeded by his son 
Richard the Third, who reigned only two years. Then in 
1028 came his other son Robert, who is famous in several 
ways, but perhaps most of all for being the father of 
William the Conqueror of England. 

6. Duke Robert and the English JEthelings. — There 
seems no doubt that Cnut and Robert had some kind of 
quarrel, but the story is told in different ways, and it is 
not easy to make out the exact truth. But it seems that 
Robert married Cnut's sister Estrith and then put her away. 
She had, seemingly before this, been married to the Danish 



CNUT AND ROBERT. 21 

Earl Ulf, who was put to death by Cnut, and she was the 
mother of Swegen called from her Eslrithson, who was after- 
wards King of the Danes, and who plays a great part in 
English history also. The Northern writers tell some wild 
stories about Cnut invading Normandy and dying while 
besieging Rouen ; but it is quite certain that he died quietly 
at Shaftesbury in 1035. But it does seem likely that 
Robert, though he never actually invaded England, yet made 
ready to do so. He played a great part in the affairs of 
the neighbouring states, and he seems to have been specially 
pleased to restore dispossessed princes to their dominions. 
Thus he restored Baldwin Count of Flanders and his own 
lord Henry King of the French. He was therefore very 
likely, above all if he had any quarrel with Cnut on other 
grounds, to try to bring home his cousins, the English JZihel- 
ings or King's sons, Alfred and Edward, and to set one of 
them on the English throne. It is said that he got together 
a fleet and set out, but he w r as hindered by the wind, and 
driven to the coast of Britanny, where he hardly had a 
quarrel with the reigning Count Alan. So, instead of con- 
quering the greater Britain, of which England is part, all that 
he did was to harry the lesser Britain in Gaul. But no doubt 
this attempt of Duke Robert's would make an invasion of 
England to be talked of in Normandy as a possible thing, and 
might specially help to put it into the head of his son William. 
7. The Second attempt of the iEthelings. — Of the 
accession and youth of William we shall say more pre- 
sently. It is enough to say now that Cnut and Robert 
died nearly at the same time. After Cnut's death the king- 
dom of England was again divided, as it had been before 
between Edmund and Cnut. Earl Godwine and the West- 
Saxons wished to keep the whole kingdom for Emma's son 
Harthacnut, who was already reigning in Denmark under his 



22 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

father. But it was decreed that Harthacnut should have 
Wessex only, and that the rest of England, together, it would 
seem, with the overlordship of all, should pass to Harold, who 
was said to be Cnut's son by an Englishwoman named 
^Elfgifu. But Harthacnut stayed in Denmark, and his Eng- 
lish kingdom was ruled by his mother Emma, with Godwine 
to her minister. Thus we seem to be getting nearer to the 
Norman Conquest, when the Norman Lady rules in Wessex. 
And now comes a story which is told in the most opposite 
ways by the old writers. It is certain that one or both of 
the English jEthelings, Alfred and Edward, made another 
attempt to get the kingdom of England, that Alfred fell into 
the hands of Harold, that his eyes were put out by Harold's 
orders, and that he soon afterwards died. But as to all the 
details of the story, there is nothing but contradiction. Some 
say that Edward invaded England with a Norman fleet, and 
won a battle near Southampton, but sailed away without 
doing anything more. Others say nothing about Edward 
and only speak of Alfred. And it was believed by many that 
Earl Godwine betrayed Alfred to Harold, though those who 
say this seem to have forgotten that Godwine was the minister 
of Harthacnut. Some say too that Alfred had a large party 
of Normans with him, and that they were put to death in 
various cruel ways. The chief thing for our purpose is that it 
was fully believed in Normandy that either Godwine by him- 
self, or the English people with Godwine at their head, had 
betrayed and murdered the JEtheling, the kinsman of the 
Norman Duke. So this was treasured up as a ground for 
vengeance against the English nation in general and against 
Godwine above all. 

8. Emma and Edward. — The next thing that happened 
in England was not likely to please the Normans much better. 
For the West-Saxons got tired of waiting for their king Har- 



EDWARD KING. 2$ 

thacnut, who stayed all the time in Denmark ; so in 1037 they 
forsook him and chose Harold to be king over Wessex as well 
as over the rest of England. The first thing that Harold did 
was to drive the Lady Emma out of the land. She did not 
go to Normandy, but to Flanders ; because Normandy was 
just then, as we shall presently see, full of confusion. But in 
1040 Harold died, and Harthacnut was chosen king over all 
England. Thus England had a king who was, on the 
mother's side, of Norman descent. Emma came back, and 
Harthacnut sent for his half-brother Edward to come from 
Normandy and live at his court. And Edward brought 
with him a French nephew of his and of Harthacnut's. 
This was Ralph, the son of their sister Godgifu or Goda, 
daughter of JEthelred and Emma, who was married to a 
French prince, Drogo Count of Mantes. So the foreign in- 
fluence, Norman and French, was spreading. Their other 
sister Gunhild, the daughter of Cnut and Emma, was married 
to King Henry of Germany, afterwards the great Emperor 
Henry the Third. Harthacnut, like his brother Harold, 
reigned only a short time, and died in 1042. Then the 
English said that they had had enough of strange kings, and 
that they would have a king of the old stock. There were 
only two men of that stock now living. Edmund Ironside 
had left two little twin sons, Edmund and Edward, who 
were sent away beyond sea in Cnut's time. Of these 
Edmund was dead, but Edward was living far away in 
Hungary. By modern law he would have been the right 
heir, as the son of the elder brother. But in those days it 
was deemed enough to choose within the kingly house, without 
thinking of any particular rule of succession. So no one 
thought of Edward who was away in Hungary, and the 
Wise Men — the great men of the land in their assembly — 
chose Edward who was near at hand, the son of jEthelred 



24 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

and Emma. Some were for choosing another Danish 
king, Swegen, the son of Cnut's sister Estrith. Swegen 
afterwards reigned very wisely in Denmark, and it might 
perhaps have really been the best thing to choose him. 
But the feeling was all in favour of a king of the old English 
stock ; so Edward was chosen. 

9. King Edward.- 1 - With Edward's election the con- 
nexion between English and Norman affairs becomes closer 
still ; we might almost say that the Norman Conquest be- 
gan in his time." Men thought that, by choosing Edward, 
the English royal house was restored to the crown; but 
it was in truth very much as if a Norman king had been 
chosen. Harthacnut had as much Norman blood in 
him as Edward, but he had not been brought up in 
Normandy ; his feelings and ways were Danish. But Ed- 
ward's feelings and ways were all Norman. His being the 
son of a Norman mother had not much to do with it, as 
there was no great love between mother and son. Emma 
had quite neglected her children by JEthelred, and she 
seems even to have opposed Edward's election. He had 
not been very long king before he took away all her trea- 
sures. What really made Edward more of a Norman than 
an Englishman was that he had lived in Normandy from his 
childhood, and had made many friends there, and chiefly his 
young cousin Duke William. He liked to speak French and 
to have French-speaking people about him, specially Norman 
churchmen, to whom he gave English bishoprics and other 
high preferments. He also gave estates and offices to Nor- 
man and other French-speaking laymen as far as he could ; 
but the King could not give away the great temporal offices 
so much according to his own pleasure as he could give away 
the great places of the Church. He could not give away either 
without the consent of his Wise Men ; but the Wise Men were 



REIGN OF EDWARD. 2 5 



J 



more ready to allow a foreign bishop than a foreign earl. So, 
while we find several French-speaking bishops and abbots in 
Edward's reign, we find only one French-speaking earl. This 
was the King's nephew Ralph the son of Godgifu. Of smaller 
men, both clergy and laymen, many held benefices and 
estates. This was specially so during the former part of 
Edward's reign, which was chiefly a time of struggle between 
English and foreign influences in the land. 

10. King Edward and Earl Godwine. — Edward was 
a devout and well-disposed man. His love of foreigners 
he could hardly help; his chief fault was now and then 
giving way to fits of passion, in which he sometimes gave 
rash and cruel orders. But in these cases he seems to have 
been commonly stirred up by his favourites. Otherwise 
he was remarkably free from cruelty or any other of the 
common vices of his time. Being thus a really good and 
pious man, and one whom both Normans and English could 
agree in reverencing, he was very early looked on as a saint 
and thought to work miracles. But he was a weak man and 
quite unfit to govern his kingdom. The first nine years of 
his reign were one long struggle whether England should be 
ruled by the King's foreign favourites or by the English Earl 
Godwine. Godwine, along with his friend Bishop Lyfing, 
had the chief hand in bringing about Eadward's election, and 
this claim on the Kings gratitude made him yet mare the 
first man in the kingdom than he was before. The King 
married his daughter Edith, and his sons were gradually 
raised to earldoms, some of them while they were very young. 
Godwine was beyond all doubt an Englishman who loved 
his own land and folk ; but he was over-grasping on his 
own behalf and on that of his children. In marrying his 
daughter to the King, he no doubt looked forward to a 
grandson of his own wearing the crown ; but Edward had 



l6 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

no children, and, at least in the early part of his reign, he 
seems to have had little love for his wife. And the gathering 
together of many earldoms in the one house of the Earl of 
the West-Saxons gave offence, not only to the Normans, but 
seemingly to the earls and people of the rest of England. 
Thus these first years of the reign of Eadward tell us the tale 
both of the power of Godwine and of his fall. 

11. The Earldoms. — It will be well here to explain who 
were the chief men of England at this time, and what were the 
earldoms which they held. At this time an earldom was not 
a mere rank or title, but meant the government of one or 
more shires over which the earl was set by the authority of the 
King and his Wise Men. There were now four chief earl- 
doms, answering to the four greatest of the ancient kingdoms, 
those of Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland, and East-Anglia. 
There were always these four; but there were also others as 
well, and shires were often taken from one earldom and given 
to another, as was thought good at the time. The Mercian 
shires above all, those in the middle of England, were very 
often handed to and fro between one earl and another. When 
Edward was elected, Godwine was Earl of the West-Saxons, 
that is, of all England south of the Thames. Siward, a famous 
Dane, was Earl of the Northumbrians, that is of all England 
north of the Humber and the Ribble, and also of Northamp- 
tonshire and Huntingdonshire. Leofric was Earl of the Mer- 
cians, but he had only the western part of Mercia under his 
immediate rule. Who was Earl of the East-Angles we do not 
know. Besides these there were other earls who held one or 
more shires, seemingly under the great earls ; and as these 
smaller earldoms became vacant, room was found both for 
the King's friends and for the family of Godwine. Thus the 
King's nephew Ralph was Earl, first of Worcester and then 
of Hereford. And Godwine very soon got earldoms for his 






THE POWER OF GODWINE. 2J 

elder sons Swegen and Harold and for his wife's nephew 
n, the brother of the Danish King Swegen. Swegen 1 

n;clv-shaped government, taking in Somerset, Gloucester- 
shire, Herefordshire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire. Harold 
had East-Anglia ; Beorn had all eastern Mercia except 
Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. Thus the power 
of Godwine and his house was very great ; but it was per- 
haps shaken by the crimes of his eldest son Swegen, who 
killed his cousin Beorn. For this he was banished, but wa 3 
afterwards restored to his earldom. 

12. Norman influence in England. — The way in which 
Godwine had to strive against the King's love of strai. 

town, as we have said, in the appointment of bishoprics 
and other great offices in the Church. Early in his reign, 
in 1044, the see of London was given to Robert, Abbot of 
Jum&ges in Normandy, the first time that an English bishopric 
had ever been held by a French-speaking man. Robert had 

I power over the King, which he used against the English 
and especially against Godwine. At last in 1051 Robert him- 
self became Archbishop of Canterbury ; other bishoprics were 

n to Normans, and Norman clerks and knights held bene- 
fices and estates in various parts of the kingdom. But the 
King did not venture to give an earldom to any Norman, or 

:iy foreigner except his own nephew Ralph. One fashion 
which the Normans brought in with them was that of building 
castles. The English were used to fortify towns, and their 

S and other chief men had lived in kails, often on the 
tops of mounds and fenced in by a pal 
mans now began to build casiUs, that is, either strong square 

:s, or strong stone walls crowning the mounds. Th 
they could oppress the people in many ways, and the writers 
of the time always speak of the building of the castles with 
a kind of shudder. 



2 8 DEALINGS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND NORMANS. 

13. The Banishment of Godwine. — The appointment 
of Robert to the archbishopric marks the time when the 
Normans had things most thoroughly their own way. 
About this time the King's brother-in-law, Count Eustace 
of Boulogne, came to pay him a visit. As he went home, 
he and his followers rode into the town of Dover, and tried 
to quarter themselves where they pleased in the houses. 
So a fight followed, in which several men were killed on 
both sides. Then the Count rode back and told the 
King how insolently the men of Dover had dealt by 
him. Then Edward flew into one of his angry fits, and 
bade Godwine go and lay waste Dover with fire and sword. 
But Godwine said that he would do no such thing; he 
would do nothing to any man in his earldom except accord- 
ing to law ; the men of Dover should be lawfully tried before 
the Wise Men, and, if they were found guilty of any crime, 
they should be lawfully punished. While these things were 
doing in Kent, there came also a cry from Herefordshire 
about the deeds of certain Normans there, Richard and his 
son Osbern, who had built a castle called Richard's Castle, 
and had greatly oppressed the people. And at the same 
time the Archbishop and the other Normans were setting the 
King against Godwine more than ever, and bringing up the 
old story about his brother Alfred. Godwine and his sons 
therefore gathered the men of their earldoms, and demanded 
that the King should give up the foreigners, Count Eustace 
among them, for lawful trial. Edward got together the 
forces of the rest of the kingdom under the EarJs Siward, 
Leofric, and Ralph, and made ready for war. The West- 
Saxons and East-Angles accordingly marched on Gloucester, 
where the King was ; but actual warfare was hindered by 
Leofric, and it was agreed that all matters should be judged 
in an assembly in London. The King came there with an 



BANISIIMEXT OF GODWIN E. 2i) 

army. The assembly met ; SwegerTs outlawry was renewed ; 
Godwine and Harold were summoned to appear as criminals 
for trial. As they refused to come without a safe-conduct, 
were outlawed. Harold and Leofwine found shelter in 
Ireland, Godwine and the rest of the family in Flanders. 
The King's wife, the Lady Edith, stayed in England, but 
she was shorn of her royal rank, and sent to the monastery 
of Wherwell. The Normans now had for awhile everything 
their own way. They thought it a good time for Duke 
William to come over and pay a visit to his cousin the King. 
William was now about twenty-three years of age, and he 
had been called Duke ever since he was a child of seven. 
We will now go back and see what had been going on in 
Normandy during these early years of his reign. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Youth of Duke William. 

1. The Birth and Accession of Duke William. — 

We have already spoken of Duke Robert, and how he 
tried to bring back his cousins the JEthelings to England. 
Towards the end of his reign Duke Robert determined to 
go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to pray at the tomb of 
Christ and win the forgiveness of his sins. Before he went, 
he wished to settle the succession to his duchy, in case he 
should die on so long and dangerous a journey. He had 
no lawful children, and it was not at all clear who among 
his kinsfolk had the best right to succeed him. So, after 
some difficulty, he was able to persuade the wise men of 
Normandy to accept as their future duke his little son Wil- 
liam, who, as his parents had never been married, was called 
William the Bastard, till he had won a right to be called 
William the Conqueror and William the Great. William was 
born before his father became Duke, while he was only 
Count of the land of Hiesmes, of which Falaise, the town of 
the rocks, was the capital, where Count Robert had a castle. 
There is a famous castle there still, but it is somewhat later 
than William's time, and he certainly was not born in it. 
But there is no doubt that William was born at Falaise, and 
that his mother Herleva was the daughter of a tanner of 
that town, whom Robert afterwards made his chamberlain. 
Herleva had also a daughter Adelaide by Duke Robert, 
and after his death she married a knight named Herlwin of 






MR Til OF DUKE WILLIAM. 3 1 

Conteville, to whom she bore two sons, Odo and Robert, 
William's half-brothers, who play a great part in our story. 
William was not at all ashamed of the lowliness of his birth 
on the mother's side, and, when he was duke, he raised her 
sons to high honour. As he was not Duke Robert's lawful 
son, he had no right to succeed according to modern law; 
but the rules of succession were then not at all fixed, an 1 
the Normans above all thought but little of lawful marr 
and birth in such matters. The chief objection to William's 
being acknowledged as the future duke was that he was a 
mere child, about seven years old, so that, if his father died 
while he was away, he would not be able to govern. But 
Duke Robert said, " He is little, but he will grow," and at last 
the wise men of Normandy sware to him. Then Robert 
went on his pilgrimage and never came back. He died on 
his way home, in 1035, a long way from his own land, at 
Nikaia in Asia, where the famous Council of the Church was 
held in the days of Constantine, and was buried there. 

2. William's Childhood. — It was after William became 
duke, but before he was a full-grown man, that the JEStheling 
Alfred had come to his sad end in England, and that the 
iEtheling Eadward had been chosen King there. We cannot 
say how much William had personally to do with either matter. 
He came to his duchy as a child ; but his childhood and youth 
were of a kind which made him a man, and a strong and 
man, very early. The Norman nobles were very hard to govern 
at any time, and when the prince was a child, they did * 
ever they chose. They were always fighting with one another, 
and sometimes murdering one another by craft. And they 
always rebelling against their young duke, and sometimes 
seeking his life. For it must be remembered that they had 
not at all wished to have llerleva's son for their lord, and 
there were several kinsmen of Duke Robert who thought, 



32 THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

and rightly according to our notions, that they had a better 
right to the duchy than William. The young duke had 
good and faithful guardians, but several of them were mur- 
dered. The land in short was in a state of utter confusion. 
And now that Normandy was divided and weak, the old 
friendship with France began to give way, and the French 
and their kings began again to remember that the settlement 
of the Normans had cut off France from the sea. So Henry 
the King of the French joined himself to William's other 
enemies, and took his castle of Tillieres on the French 
border. Thus he was William's enemy early in his reign, 
and he became his enemy again afterwards ; but in the most 
dangerous moment of William's Norman reign, the French 
king was his firm friend. This was in 1047, when a large 
part of Normandy rose in rebellion against William, of which 
we must say a little more. 

3. The Revolt of Western Normandy. — It will be 
remembered that the western part of Normandy, the lands 
of Bayeux and Coutances, were won by the Norman dukes 
after the eastern part, the lands of Rouen and Evreux. 
And it will be remembered that these western lands, won 
more lately and fed by new colonies from the North, 
were still heathen and Danish some while after eastern 
Normandy had become Christian and French-speaking. 
Now we may be sure that, long before William's day, all Nor- 
mandy was Christian, but it is quite possible that the old 
tongue may have lingered on in the western lands. At any 
rate there was a wide difference in spirit and feeling between 
the more French and the more Danish districts, to say no- 
thing of Bayeux, where, before the Normans came, there 
had been a Saxon settlement. One part of the duchy in 
short was altogether Romance in speech and manners, while 
more or less of Teutonic character still clave to the other. 






BATTLE OF VAL-£S-DUNES. 33 

So now Teutonic Normandy rose against Duke William, and 
Romance Normandy was faithful to him. The nobles of 
the Bessin and Cotentin made league with William's cousin 
Guy of Burgundy, meaning, as far as one can see, to make 
Guy Duke of Rouen and Evreux, and to have no lord at all 
for themselves. Their leader was Neal, the Viscount of the 
Cotentin, the son of the Neal who had beaten back the English 
invasion in iEthelred's day. When the rebellion broke out, 
William was among them at Valognes, and they tried to 
seize him. But his fool warned him in the night; he rode 
for his life, and got safe to his own Falaise. 

4. The Battle of Val-es-Dunes. — All eastern Nor- 
mandy was loyal ; but William doubted whether he could 
by himself overcome so strong an array of rebels. So he 
went to Poissy, between Rouen and Paris, and asked his 
lord King Henry to help him. So King Henry came 
with a French army; and the French and those whom 
we may call the French Normans met the Teutonic Nor- 
mans in battle at Val-es-dunes, not very far from Caen. 
It was William's first pitched battle, a battle of horse- 
men, in which King and Duke fought hand to hand against 
the rebels, and each slew some of their chief men. Yet 
King Henry was once thrown from his horse by a spear 
from the Cotentin, a deed of which the men of the penin- 
sula sang in their rimes. But they were beaten none the less, 
and the whole land which had rebelled submitted. Neal 
escaped, and was after a while pardoned, nor was Duke 
William's hand at all heavy on his vanquished enemies. 
But he had vanquished them thoroughly. He was now 
fully master of his own duchy ; the battle of Val-es-dunes 
finally fixed that Normandy should take its character from 
Romance Rouen and not from Teutonic Bayeux. William 
had in short overcome Saxons and Danes in Gaul before he 



34 THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

came to overcome them in Britain. He had to conquer his 
own Normandy before he could conquer England, and we 
shall see that, between these two conquests, he had in some 
sort to conquer France also. 

5. Duke William's Visit to King Edward. — Thus 
Duke William was for the first time master in Normandy, 
and four years later it was no doubt said that King Ed- 
ward was for the first time master in England. Godwine 
was gone, and the King's Norman favourites had every- 
thing their own way. And now the young Duke came 
to pay his cousin a visit. With so many Normans at the 
court and in other parts of the land, it might almost seem 
to him that he was still in his own duchy. Was it now that 
the thought first came into his head that he might succeed 
his childless kinsman in a kingdom which looked as if it had 
already become Norman ? Certain it is that William always 
said that Edward had promised him the crown at his death ; 
and this visit seems a more likely time for such a promise 
than any time before or after. Of course we must remember 
that Edward could not, by English law, really leave William 
the crown ; the utmost that he could do would be to recom- 
mend the Wise Men to choose him at his death. But just 
at this time neither W T illiam nor Edward was likely to think 
much about English law, and Edward's Norman counsellors 
were still less likely to think about it than either of them. 
We cannot say for certain how it was ; but we can hardly 
doubt that Edward did make William some kind of promise, 
and this seems the most likely time for it. At any rate 
William had now conquered Normandy and had visited 
England. These are two steps towards the time when he 
again came to England, not as guest but as Conqueror. 

6. Duke William in his own Duchy. — We shall see 
presently that the course of events in England must have 






WILLIAM AND EDWARD. $$ 

altogether thrown back William's hopes with regard to 
the English crown. But he went on winning fame and 
power in his own land beyond the sea. He ruled his 
duchy wisely and well, and it flourished greatly under him. 
He promoted learned men from other countries, above 
all two men who lived to play a greater part in England 
than in Normandy. These were Lanfranc from Pavia in 
Italy and Anselm from Aosta in Burgundy. They were 
both monks of the newly-founded monastery of Bee in Nor- 
mandy, which was at this time a nursery of famous men. 
The Duke married Matilda, daughter of Baldwin Count of 
Flanders, by whom he had several daughters and, for the 
present, three sons, Robert, Richard, and William., The 
most famous of his daughters was Adela, who married 
Stephen Count of Blois. But Duke William did not reign 
without rebellions at home and wars abroad. For a short 
time after the battle of Val-es-dunes the friendship between 
the Duke and King Henry of France went on. Both joined 
in a war against Geoffrey Count of Anjou, who now held 
the land of Maine between Anjou and Normandy. In 1049 
Duke William for the first time extended his dominions by 
winning the castles of Domfront and Ambrieres in Maine, 
of which Domfront has ever since been part of Normandy. 
But before long King Henry got jealous of William's power, 
and he was now always ready to give help to any Norman 
rebels. Men in France began again to say that Normandy 
was a land cut off from France, and that France should be 
made again to reach to the sea as of old. And the other 
neighbouring princes were jealous of him as well as the 
King. His neighbours in Britanny, Anjou, Chartres, and 
Ponthieu, were all against him. But the great Duke was 
able to hold his own against them all, and before long to 
make a great addition to his dominions. 

D 2 



$6 THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

7. Duke William's Wars with Prance. — The wars 
between Normandy and France are very important, because 
they have so great a bearing on English history. There 
was no quarrel between England and France as long as 
Normandy lay between them. But France and Normandy 
had many quarrels and wars; sa, when the same prince 
ruled in England and in Normandy, England was dragged 
into the quarrels of Normandy, and there grew up a rivalry 
between England and France which went on after Nor- 
mandy was conquered by France. These wars therefore 
between Duke William and King Henry are really the begin- 
ning of the long wars between England and France. King 
Henry invaded Normandy three times. The first time, in 
1053, the King came to help a kinsman of the Duke's, Wil- 
liam Count of Arques near Dieppe, where the castle with 
a very deep ditch is still to be seen. This time the French 
army was caught in an ambush and was utterly routed. In 
this battle was killed Ingelram Count of Ponthieu, which 
made room for the accession of his brother Count Guy. The 
next year, 1054, King Henry came again with a much 
greater army, gathered from his own kingdom and from the 
dominions of many of the other princes of Gaul. They 
came in two great divisions, to attack Normandy on both 
sides of the Seine. That which came in on the right bank 
was utterly cut to pieces in the town of Mortemer, which 
they had occupied and where the Normans attacked them 
by night. Then the Duke sent a messenger who crossed to 
the other side of the river where the King's own army was, 
where he climbed a tree and shouted to them in the dark- 
ness to go bury their friends who were dead at Mortemer. 
So they were seized with a panic and fled. In this battle the 
new Count of Ponthieu, Guy, was taken prisoner, and was 
not let go till he became Duke William's man for his county. 






William's wars with France. 37 

Peace was now made with France, and Duke William was 
allowed to make some conquests at the expense of Anjou. 
But very soon France and Anjou were again allied against 
Normandy. In 1058 King Henry made his last invasion. 
This time the French army was cut off by a sudden attack at 
the ford of Varaville near the Dive. All these campaigns 
show that William, who could fight so well in a pitched 
battle, was no less skilful in all kinds of cunning enterprises. 
Soon after this, in 1060, both King Henry and Geoffrey of 
Anjou died. William was now safe from all attacks on that 
side, all the more so as the new King of the French, Philip, 
was a child, and the Regent was William's own father-in-law 
Count Baldwin of Flanders. 

8. The Conquest of Maine. — Thus William, who in 
some sort conquered his own Normandy at Val-es-dunes, 
did in some sort also conquer France at Mortemer and 
Varaville. But he had not yet enlarged his dominions, 
except at Domfront and Ambrieres and one or two other 
points on the frontier towards Maine. He was presently 
able to win the whole county. And this part of William's 
life should be carefully studied, because his conquest of 
Maine is strikingly like his conquest of England. In both 
cases he won a land against the will of its people, and yet 
with some show of legal right. Maine had had counts of 
its own, some of them famous men, as were also many of 
the bishops of the great city of Le Mans ; the citizens too 
were stout and jealous of their freedom. But latterly the 
land of Maine had come under the power of Geoffrey of 
Anjou. On Geoffrey's death, the lawful Count Herbert, to 
get back his county, commended himself to William, and 
they settled that William's son Robert should marry Herbert's 
sister Margaret, and that Maine should pass to their 
descendants. This was something like Edward's promise of 



38 THE YOUTH OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

the English crown to William. In 1063 Herbert died child- 
less, and William claimed the county on behalf of his son, 
though he and Margaret were not yet married. But the 
people of Maine chose for their count Walter Count of 
Mantes, who had married Count Herbert's aunt Biota. He 
was the son of King Edward's sister Godgifu and brother of 
Ralph of Hereford. This was like the English people 
choosing Harold. Then William made war on Maine, and 
occupied the county bit by bit, till the city surrendered and 
Walter submitted to him. Soon after this Walter and Biota 
died ; William's enemies said that he poisoned them, which is 
not in the least likely. But from this time he ruled over Maine 
as well as over Normandy. We shall see that its brave 
people revolted more than once against both him and his 
sons. But the conquest of Maine raised William's power and 
fame to a higher pitch than it reached at any other time 
before his conquest of England. And, soon after the con- 
quest of Maine, the affairs of Normandy and England, which 
have stayed apart ever since William's visit to Edward, begin 
to be joined together. It is time then to go back and see 
what had been happening meanwhile in England. 



CHAPTER V. 

Harold Earl and King. 

1. The Return of Godwine and Harold. — When 

Duke William paid his visit to King Edward in 1052, God- 
wine and all his family, save only the Lady Edith, were in 
banishment, and the Normans were in full power in the 
land. But before long the English were longing to have 
Godwine back again. Men soon began to tire of the King's 
foreign favourites, who, it seemed, could not even defend the 
land against the Welsh. For the Welsh King Gruffydd came 
into Herefordshire and smote the Normans who held 
Richard's Castle. Men sent to ask Godwine to come back ; 
he prayed the King to let him come back, and he got Count 
Baldwin with whom he was staying and also the King of the 
French to ask for him; but the King's favourites would not 
let him hearken. Then, in 1052, Godwine made up his 
mind to come back without the King's leave, as he knew that 
no Englishman was likely to fight against him. He there- 
fore set sail from Flanders, and Harold and Leofwine set sail 
from Dublin. The crews of their ships must have been 
Irish Danes, which perhaps made Englishmen afraid of them. 
For, when they landed at Porlock in Somerset, the men of 
the land withstood them, and Harold and Leofwine beat 
them in a battle and harried the neighbourhood. But when 
Godwine came to southern England, no man withstood his 
coming, but in most parts the folk joined him willingly, say- 



40 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

ing that they would live and die with him. The King got a 
fleet against him ; but the crews had no heart, and the fleet 
was scattered before Godwine came. At last Godwine's ships 
and Harold's met, and they sailed up the Thames together, 
and came before London on September 14. The citizens then 
said that what the Earl would they would ; the King and his 
earls brought up an army and another fleet, but the men 
would not fight against Earl Godwine. Then peace was 
made ; it was agreed that an assembly should be held the 
next day to settle everything. Then Godwine landed, having 
come back without shedding of blood. Then fear came on 
all the Normans who were in and near London, and they 
fled hither and thither. Specially the Norman Archbishop 
Robert and Ulf Bishop of Dorchester cut their way out of 
the city, slaying as they went, and went beyond sea, and 
never came back to England. 

2. The Restoration of Godwine. — The next day the 
assembly met, and voted that Godwine and all his family 
should be restored to all their goods and honours. It was 
voted also that all the Normans who had misled the King, 
especially Archbishop Robert, who was gone already, 
should be banished. So Godwine and Harold got back 
their earldoms, and the Lady Edith came back from her 
monastery ; only Swegen did not come back ; for he had 
repented him of his sins and gone barefoot on a pil- 
grimage to Jerusalem, and had died on the way back, about 
the time that his father and brothers came home. Of 
the King's Norman friends some were allowed to stay, and 
Bishop William of London was allowed to keep his bishopric ; 
but from this time no more Normans got bishoprics or other 
great offices. And the English Bishop Stigand got the arch- 
bishopric of Canterbury instead of Robert. This is a thing 
to be specially remembered; for it was made a charge 



THE RETURN OF GODWINE. 4 1 

against Stigand, Godwine, Harold, and the whole English 
nation that Robert had been driven from his archbishopric 
and Stigand put in his place, without the authority of the 
Pope, but merely by a vote of the English assembly. The 
Popes therefore never acknowledged Stigand as lawful 
archbishop, and though he kept the archbishopric till four 
years after William's coming, many people in England seem 
to have been afraid to have any great ecclesiastical ceremony 
done by him. Bishops commonly went to be consecrated by 
the Pope, or else by the Archbishop of York. It is easy to 
see how Duke William was able to turn all this to his own 
ends. 

3. The Death of Godwine. — At the Easter-tide of 
the next year, April 15, 1053, Earl Godwine died. He 
was seized with a fit while at the King's table, and died 
three days after. The Normans told strange tales about 
his death, but that is the simple story in our own Chroni- 
cles. Then his son Harold succeeded him as Earl of the 
West-Saxons, and was the chief ruler of England during 
the remaining thirteen years of Edward's reign. There is 
no sign of any dispute between the King and the Earl, 
though Edward's chief favourite was not Harold, but his 
younger brother Tostig. The King was allowed to have 
his Norman friends about him in offices of his court, but not 
to set them over the kingdom. Bishoprics were given either 
to Englishmen or to men from Lorraine, that is, we should 
now say, from Belgium, who could most likely speak both 
Low-Dutch and French. The King's nephew Ralph and his 
friend Odda kept their earldoms as long as they lived ; but, 
as earldoms fell vacant, they were given to men of the two 
great families of Godwine and Leofric. jElfgar son of 
Leofric succeeded Harold in East-Anglia. In 1055 Siward 
of Northumberland died, and his earldom was given to 



42 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

Tostig the son of God wine. And when in 1057 the Earls 
Leofric and Ralph died, the earldoms were parted out again. 
JElfgar took his father's earldom of Mercia ; only Ralph's 
earldom of Hereford, which needed specially to be guarded 
against the Welsh, was added to Harold's earldom. Godwine's 
son Gyrth succeeded JElfgar in East-Anglia, and his other 
son Leofwine got Kent and the other shires round London. 
Thus the greater part of England was under the rule of the 
house of Godwine, and what was not remained under the 
house of Leofric; for when JElfgar died, his son Edwin 
succeeded him. 

4. The Scottish and Welsh Wars. — These later years 
of Edward's reign, in which Harold was truly the ruler of 
England, were marked by several stirring events. Thus 
there was a war with Scotland, where the crown had been 
more than once disputed between two families. The pre- 
sent king Macbeth had come to the crown after a battle 
in which Duncan the former king w r as killed. Duncan was 
a kinsman of Earl Siward, who therefore wished to restore his 
son Malcolm. In 1054 Siward entered Scotland, defeated 
Macbeth, and declared Malcolm king ; but the war went 
on for four years longer, till Macbeth and his son were 
killed and Malcolm got the whole kingdom. Then there 
were several wars with the Welsh, under their last great king 
Gruffydd son of Llywelyn. In 1055 EarliElfgar was banished; 
he then joined Gruffydd in an invasion of Herefordshire. 
Earl Ralph went out to meet him ; but either he only knew 
the French way of righting or he liked it best. So he made 
the English go into battle on horseback, to which they were 
not used, and they were therefore defeated. jElfgar and 
Gruffydd then burned and sacked Hereford ; but Earl Harold 
came and fortified the city afresh. Peace was made with 
Gruffydd, and iElfgar got his earldom back again. Gruffydd 



SCOTTISH AND WELSH WARS. 43 

presently made war again, but he lost part of his lands at the 
next peace. He seems to have always kept up his connexion 
with JElfgar and his family, and he married JElfgar's daughter 
Ealdgyth. At last in 1062 his ravages could no longer be 
borne, and it was determined to subdue him altogether. The 
next year Earl Harold waged a great campaign in Wales, in 
which, the better to fight among the mountains, he made the 
English take to the Welsh way of fighting, and so made all 
the Welsh submit. Gruffydd was presently killed by his own 
people, and Earl Harold gave Wales to two princes, Bleddyn 
and Rhiwallon, to hold as the King's men. These Welsh 
and Scottish wars make up nearly all that happened between 
England and other lands during this time. There was peace 
with Normandy ; but Duke William paid no more visits to 
his cousin the King. Of a visit which Earl Harold made to 
him we shall speak presently. 

5. The Succession to the Crown. — All this time men 
must have been thinking who should be king whenever 
King Edward should die. By English law, when the king 
died, the Wise Men chose the next king. But they chose 
from the kingly house, and, if the last king left a son of an 
age to rule, he was almost always chosen. Indeed, if he 
were actually the son of a king, born after his father was 
crowned, he had a special right to be chosen. But the 
crown had never been given to a woman, nor does it seem 
that the son of a king's daughter had any claim above 
another man. But it was held that, though the crown could 
not pass by will, yet some weight ought to belong to the 
wishes of the late King. Now King Edward had no 
children, and the only man in the kingly house was his 
nephew Edward, the son of his elder brother Edmund 
Ironside. This is he who had been sent away as a child 
in Cnut's time. He was now living in Hungary, with his 



44 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

wife and three children, Edgar, Margaret, and Christina. 
King Edward in 1054 sent for him to come to England, 
doubtless meaning that he should succeed him. This shows 
that he had quite given up all thought of being succeeded 
by his Norman cousin. Edward the iEtheling — that is, the 
king's son, as son of Edmund Ironside — came to England 
in 1057; but he sickened and died soon after he landed. 
His son Edgar was quite a child, and was not a king's son. 
Moreover he was not born in the land, and he could hardly 
have been much of an Englishman. Men had therefore to 
think who should be king if King Edward died before 
Edgar was grown up. One can fancy that the King might 
have wished to leave the crown to his nephew Earl Ralph ; 
but, though he was the King's nephew, he was not of the 
kingly house, and he was not an Englishman. Ralph too 
died the same year. We can hardly doubt that from this 
time men began to think whether a time might not come 
when they should have to choose a king not of the kingly 
house. From this time Earl Harold seems to hold a special 
place, and to be spoken of in a special way. His name is 
joined with the King's name in a way which is not usual, and 
he is even called Subregulus or Under-king. All this looks as 
if the thought of choosing him king whenever Edward should 
die was already in men's minds. 

6. Earl Harold's Church at Waltham. — In those 
days almost every great man, both in England and in Nor- 
mandy, thought it his duty to make some great gift to the 
Church, commonly to found or enrich some monastery, 
lo build or rebuild its great church or minster. Many 
monasteries were founded and churches built at this time 
in Normandy by Duke William and his barons. And it 
was the same in England. King Edward's great business 
was to rebuild and enrich the minster of Saint Peter on the 






HAROLD'S CHURCH AT WALTHAM. 45 

: 

isle of Thorney in the Thames, which, as standing west from 
the great church of London, the church of Saint Paul, was 
| known as the West Minster. So the Lady Edith, Earl 
Leofric and his wife Godgifu, Earl Siward, Earl Odda, and 
many bishops and abbots, were busy at this time building 
churches and founding monasteries. Earl Godwine is the 
only great man of the time of whom we hear nothing of the 
kind. Earl Harold, on the other hand, was as bountiful as 
any of them, only his bounty went, not to the monks, but to 
the secular clergy. These were those clergy who were not, 
like the monks, bound by special vows in their own persons, 
but only by the general law of the Church. They were the 
parish priests and the canons of cathedral and collegiate 
churches ; only in England several cathedral churches were 
now served by monks, and more were afterwards. For the 
monks were much more in fashion just now ; Earl Harold 
however, when he founded a great church, placed in it not 
monks but secular canons. This was at Waltham in Essex. 
A church had been founded there in Cnut's days by his 
banner-bearer Tofig the Proud, who put in it a rood or cross 
which had been brought from Leodgaresburh (afterwards 
called Montacute) in Somerset, and which was thought to 
work wonders. Harold now rebuilt Tofig's church on a 
greater scale; and, whereas Tofig had founded only two 
priests, Harold raised the number to twelve, one of whom 
was Dean, and another Childmasier \ Earl Harold had through 
his whole life a special reverence for the Holy Cross of 
Waltham, and in battle the war-cry of his immediate following 
was " Holy Cross." 

7. Harold and William. — The Duke of the Normans 
and the Earl of the West-Saxons were thus both of them 
winning fame and power, each of them on his own side of 
the sea. They were beyond all doubt the foremost men, the 



46 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

one in England, the other in Gaul. But there was a differ- 
ence between their positions which arose out of the different 
political conditions of England and Gaul. Harold was a sub- 
ject of the King of the English, his chief adviser and minister, 
the ruler of a great part of the kingdom under the King. But 
he was still a subject, though a subject who had some hope of 
being one day chosen king over his own land and people. 
William could not be called a subject of the King of the French ; 
he was a sovereign prince, ruling his own land, and owing at 
most an external homage to the king. But he had no chance, 
as Harold had, of ever becoming a king in his own land ; his 
only chance of becoming a king was by winning, either by 
force or by craft, the crown of England. Harold and William 
were therefore rivals. By this time they must have known that 
they were rivals. But as yet nothing had happened to make 
any open enmity between them. They could hardly have met 
face to face ; but each must have carefully watched the course 
of the other. And before long they were to meet face to face ; 
but there are so many stories as to the way in which their 
meeting came about that it is very hard to say anything at all 
certain about it. Harold made a journey on the continent in 
1058, when he made the pilgrimage to Rome. And it is said 
that, on his way back, he carefully studied the state of things 
among the princes of Gaul. At that time William's chief 
enemies, Henry of France, William of Aquitaine, and Geoffrey 
of Anjou, were all alive, and it may be that Harold had some 
schemes of alliance with some of them, in case William 
should ever put forth any dangerous claims. But of the 
details of this journey we know nothing. The Norman 
writers always said that Harold at some time or other took 
an oath to William, which he broke by accepting the English 
crown. But they tell the story in so many ways, with so 
many differences of time, place, and circumstances, that we 



HAROLD IN NORMANDY. 47 

cannot be certain as to any details. The English writers 
say nothing about the story ; but the fact that they do say 
nothing about it is the best proof that there is some truth in 
it. For there are many Norman slanders against Harold 
which they carefully answer ; so we may be sure that, if they 
could have altogether denied this story, if they could have 
said that Harold never took any oath to William at all. they 
would gladly have said so. We may therefore believe that 
Harold did take some kind of oath to William, which oath 
William was able to say that Harold had broken. But further 
than this we can say nothing for certain. All that we can do 
therefore is to tell the story in that way which, out of the 
many ways in which it is told, seems the least unlikely. 

8. The Oath of Harold. — It would seem then that, most 
likely in the year 1064, after the Welsh war, Harold was sailing 
in the Channel, most likely with his brother Wulfnoth and his 
sister ^Elfgifu. They were wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, 
where Count Guy, according to the cruel custom of the time 
towards shipwrecked people, shut up Harold in prison, in 
hopes of getting a ransom. But the Earl contrived to send a 
message to Guy's lord Duke William, and the Duke at once 
sent to release him, paying Guy a large ransom. William then 
took Harold to his court at Rouen and kept him there as his 
guest in all friendship. Harold even consented, in return 
doubtless for the kindness which the Duke had shown him, 
to help William in a war which he was carrying on with the 
Breton Count Conan, a war in which William and Harold 
together took the town of Dinan. At some stage of this 
visit Harold took the oath. It seems most likely that the 
oath really was simply to marry one of William's daughters, 
but that the oath was accompanied by an act of homage 
to William. Such acts of homage were often done in return 
for any favour, without much being meant by them ; and 



48 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

Harold had just received a great favour from William in his 
release from Guy's prison. The act might be understood 
in two ways ; but it is plain that William would have a great 
advantage when he came to claim the crown, from the fact 
that Harold had in any way become his man. All kinds 
of other stories, some strange, some quite impossible, are 
told. Harold is made to promise, not only to secure the 
crown to William on Edward's death, but to give up the 
castle of Dover and other places in England to be held by 
Norman garrisons. And there is one specially famous tale 
how William tricked Harold into swearing quite unwittingly 
in an unusually solemn way. He was made, so the story ran, 
to put his hand on a chest, and it was shown to him after- 
wards that this chest was full of the relics of saints. And those 
who tell this story are much shocked at the supposed crime 
of Harold, but seem to see no harm in the trick played by 
William. The stories all contradict one another ; but they 
all agree in one thing, namely in making Harold promise to 
marry a daughter of William. And this promise he certainly 
did not keep. After all this, Harold went back to England, 
leaving, as it would seem, his brother Wulfnoth as a hostage 
for fulfilment of his promise, whatever that promise was. 

9. The Revolt of Northumberland. — It will be re- 
membered that Tostig the son of Godwine had been made 
Earl of the Northumbrians on the death of Siward in 1055. 
Beside Northumberland, his earldom took in the outlying 
shires of Northampton and Huntingdon. The Norman 
tales speak of Harold and Tostig as having been enemies 
from their boyhood ; but there is nothing to make us think 
that there is any truth in this, and Tostig helped Harold 
in his Welsh wars. Tostig had also some wars of his 
own with Malcolm of Scotland, who invaded Northum- 
berland, although he and Tostig were sworn brothers. 



THE REVOLT OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 49 

Tostig also, like Harold, made the pilgrimage to Rome, 
and, when he and his people were robbed, he used some 
very bold language to Pope Nicolas. In his own earl- 
dom he had a fierce people to rule, and he ruled them 
fiercely; beginning with stern justice, he gradually sank 
into oppression. He seems also to have given offence by 
staving away from his earldom with the King, with whom 
he was a great favourite, and handing Northumberland 
over to the rule of one Copsige. At last, when he had put 
several of the chief men to death and had laid on a very 
heavy tax, the whole people revolted. This was in October, 
1065. They held an assembly at York, in which they declared 
Tostig deposed, and chose Morkere the son of JElfgar to 
be their earl. Under him Oswulf, a descendant of the old 
earls, was to rule in Bernicia. They rifled Tostig's hoard ; 
they killed his followers and friends, and marched to 
Northampton, harrying the land as they went. There 
Morkere's brother Edwin, the Earl of the Mercians, met 
them with the men of his earldom and a great body of 
Welshmen. Thus half England was in revolt. Tostig 
meanwhile was hunting with the King in Wiltshire. The 
King was eager to make war on the Northumbrians; but 
Earl Harold wished to make peace, even at the expense 
of his brother. The King at last gave him full power to 
settle matters ; so he held an assembly at Oxford, and, as he 
saw that it was hopeless to try to reconcile Tostig and the 
Northumbrians, he granted their demands. Peace was 
made, and the laws of Cnut were renewed ; that is to say, 
it was decreed that Northumberland should be as well ruled 
as it had been in Cnut's day. Morkere was acknowledged 
as Earl of the Northumbrians ; but Northamptonshire and 
Huntingdonshire were given to Waltheof the son of Siward. 
And Oswulf, one of the blood of the old Northumbrian earls, 

E 



50 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

ruled, seemingly under Morkere, in the northern part of the 
earldom, that which was now beginning to be specially called 
Northumberland. Tostig wcs banished and sought shelter 
in Flanders. By this revolution the house of Leofric became 
again at least as powerful in England as the house of 
God wine, setting aside the personal influence of Harold. 

10. The Death of Edward. — We have now come 
near to the end of King Edward's reign. All this time 
he had been building the great church of Saint Peter at 
Westminster, close by his palace, and he was just able to 
finish it before he died. The Wise Men came together 
at Westminster for the Christmas feast of 1065 ; the King 
wore his crown as usual ; but he fell sick before the hallow- 
ing of the new minster, which was done on Innocents' Day. 
Before the feast was over, on January 5th, 1066, he died, 
the last King of the male line of Cerdic. Before he died, 
he uttered some strange words which were taken to be 
a prophecy, and which were in aftertimes understood of 
the Conquest of England and of the succession of the 
kings who followed. But his last act was to recommend 
the Wise Men to choose Earl Harold as king in his stead. 
The next day, the feast of the Epiphany, King Edward 
was buried in his own church of Saint Peter. He had built 
it specially to be the crowning-place and the burying-place 
of kings. It was put to both uses within a few days after it 
was hallowed. 

11. The Election and Coronation of Harold. — And 
now the time had come for which men must have been 
looking so long. King Edward was dead; a new king 
had to be chosen, and there was no one in the kingly 
house fit to be chosen. As the Christmas feast was not yet 
over, the Wise Men were still gathered together at West- 
minster ; so that they could choose at once. It is not clear 



HAROLD CHOSEN KING. 51 

whether anybody in England knew anything about Harold's 
oath to William ; if anything was known of it, it must have 
been held to be of no strength. Nor do we know whether 
the claims either of William or of Edgar were spoken 
of or thought of. The thing which is certain is that, as 
soon as Edward was dead, the assembly met, and, accord- 
ing to the late king's wishes, chose Earl Harold King. 
The next day he was hallowed to king in the new church 
of Saint Peter ; that is, he was crowned and anointed, and 
he swore the oath to his people. As men had doubts 
whether Stigand of Canterbury was a lawful archbishop, 
ihe rite was done by Ealdred Archbishop of York. Of this 
there is no real doubt, though some of the Norman writers 
say that Harold was crowned by Stigand. That is, they 
wish to imply that he was not lawfully crowned. For in 
those days the crowning of a king was not a mere pageant. 
It was his actual admission to the kingly office, just like the 
consecration of a bishop. Till he was crowned, he might 
have, by birth or election, the sole right to become king; but 
he did not become king till the oil was poured on his head 
and the crown set upon it. So men might argue that, if the 
rite was done by an archbishop who had no good right to 
his see, the coronation would not be valid. All this is worth 
marking, as showing the feelings of the time. But there is 
no doubt that Harold came to the crown quite regularly, 
that he was recommended by Edward on his death-bed, 
that he was regularly chosen by the assembly, and regularly 
crowned by Archbishop Ealdred. If things had gone on 
quietly, Harold would most likely have been the first of 
a new line of kings. This event in our history is very much 
like what had happened among the Franks three hundred 
years before. The last King of the house of the Merwings 
was deposed, and Pippin, the father of the Emperor Charles 

E 2 



52 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

the Great, was chosen King in his stead. Only in England 
there was no need to depose Edward, but merely to choose 
Harold when he died. And in one very important point the 
change of the kingly house among the English was quite 
unlike the same change among the Franks. For the Pope 
specially approved of the election of Pippin, while the Pope 
was very far from approving of the election of Harold. 

12. King Harold in Northumberland. — One of the 
English Chronicles says that the nine months of the reign 
of Harold were a time of " little stillness/' So it truly 
was; he was hard at work from the very beginning. At 
what time Duke William first sent to challenge the crown 
is not certainly known; but it is not likely to have been 
very long after Harold's crowning. Of this however we 
shall best speak in another chapter. But the new king 
found at once that part of his kingdom was not ready 
to acknowledge him. This was Northumberland, to the 
people of which land he had lately shown so much favour 
by confirming their deposition of his own brother, and their 
choice of Morkere as their earl. Harold had indeed been 
crowned by their own archbishop, and their chief men must 
have acknowledged him along with the rest of the Wise 
Men ; but we should remember that at an assembly in Lon- 
don, though there would be many men present from Wessex, 
Mercia, and East-Anglia, there could not be many from 
Northumberland. This would indeed be true of almost every 
assembly that was held at all ; for the three usual places were 
Winchester, Westminster, and Gloucester, all of them places 
convenient in turn for different parts of southern England, 
but none of them convenient for Northumberland. But the 
change of the kingly house was an act of greater weight 
than any other, and the Northumbrians might have some 
kind of ground for saying that the choice had been made 



HAROLD IN NORTHUMBERLAND. 53 

without their consent. How far the brother earls Edwin 
and Morkere had anything to do with stirring up discontent 
we cannot tell ; but their doings both before and after look 
like it. Anyhow the Northumbrians refused to acknowledge 
King Harold. The King now did just as he had done a few 
months before. He did not think of force; but he went 
himself to York, taking with him his friend Wulfstan Bishop 
of Worcester, a most holy man, who was afterwards called 
Saint Wulfstan. At York he held an assembly, and the 
speeches of the King and the Bishop persuaded the North- 
humbrians to submit without any fighting. And it was most 
likely at this time, and by way of further pleasing the North- 
humbrians, that King Harold married Ealdgyth the sister 
of Edwin and Morkere and widow of the Welsh King 
Gruffydd. He thus made it quite impossible that he could 
marry Duke William's daughter. And the Norman writers 
do not fail to speak against the marriage on that score, and 
further to blame him for marrying the widow of a man whom 
he had killed. Yet Harold had simply overcome Gruffydd 
in fair warfare, and he had nothing to do with his death, 
which was the deed of Gruffydd' s own people. 

13. The Comet. — King Harold came back from York to 
Westminster, and there kept his Easter feast. The usual place 
was Winchester ; but London was now growing in importance, 
and specially so during these few months of Harold's reign. 
For he was busy the whole time in making ready for the 
defence of all southern and eastern England, and for this 
London was the best head-quarters. He did not appoint 
any earl of the West-Saxons, but kept W r essex in his own 
hands, while the south-eastern shires formed the earldoms 
of his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. We read mtch of his 
good government and good laws, which of course simply 
means that he went on doing as king as he had done as 



54 HAROLD EARL AND KING. 

earl. For any making of new laws he had no time. But 
he seems to have given what heed he could to ecclesiastical 
appointments and reform ; for it was specially needful for 
him to get the clergy on his side. One thing specially 
marked this Easter assembly. A most brilliant comet was 
seen, which is recorded by all manner of writers both in 
England and elsewhere. In those days, when astronomy 
was little known, men believed that a comet was sent as a 
sign that some great event was going to happen. So now 
men gazed at the hairy star, and wondered what would come 
of it. By this time every one must have known something 
of the great struggle which was coming. The comet, it was 
thought, foretold the fall of some great power; but they 
could not yet tell whether it foretold the fall of Harold or 
the fall of William. 

14. Summary. — We have thus seen how, after the death 
of his father, Harold, as Earl of the West-Saxons, gradually 
became chief ruler of England, and how the path was opened 
to him to become king on Edward's death. We have seen 
how he made some kind of oath to Duke William which might 
be said to be broken by his accepting the crown. We have 
seen how he was nevertheless regularly named, chosen, and 
crowned king, and how he got possession of the whole 
kingdom. We have now to see what was all this while 
going on beyond sea, what preparations his rival Duke 
William was making, and what other dangers were threat- 
ening England from other quarters. 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Two Harolds. 

1. Tostig's Invasion. — Harold and the English people 
must have known very well by this time the danger which 
threatened them from Normandy. They did not perhaps 
think so much of another danger which threatened them 
at the same time. Besides Duke William, another foe 
was arming against them, and, as it turned out, it was 
this other foe who struck the first blow. It was indeed 
a time of little stillness when men had to guard against two 
invasions at once. Or rather it was found to be impossible 
to guard against both of them. While King Harold 
was doing all that man could do to make the southern 
coast of England safe against the Norman, another enemy 
whom he did not look for came against him in the north. 
This was the famous King of the Northmen, Harold son 
of Sigurd, called Hardrada, that is Hard-rede, the stern 
in counsel. King Harold of Norway came before Duke 
William of Normandy. And yet King Harold of Norway 
was not the first to come. After all it was the south of 
England which was first invaded, but it was by a much 
smaller enemy than by either the great king or the great 
duke. This was no other than the banished Earl Tostig. 
He seems to have been trying to get help anywhere to put 
him back in his earldom, even at the cost of a foreign con- 
quest of England. Some say that he had been to Nor- 



56 THE TWO HAROLDS. 

mandy to stir up Duke William, some that he had been to 
Norway to stir up King Harold. The accounts are not easy 
to put together. But it is certain that by May he had got 
together some ships from somewhere or other, and with 
them he came to Wight. He then plundered along the south 
coast ; but by this time King Harold of England was getting 
ready his great fleet and army to withstand Duke William. 
So King Harold marched to the coast, and Tostig sailed 
away. He then sailed to Lindesey and plundered there. 
But the Earls Edwin and Morkere drove him away, and 
he found shelter in Scotland with King Malcolm. 

2. Harold Hardrada. — Harold of Norway was the 
most famous warrior of Northern Europe. His youth had 
been passed in banishment ; so he took service under 
the Eastern Emperors, who now kept a Scandinavian 
guard called the Warangians. In that force he did many 
exploits, specially by helping in the war, when in 1038 
the Imperial general George Maniakes won back a large 
part of Sicily from the Saracens. It is even said that he 
w r aged war with the Saracens in Africa, and he then made 
the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which he is said to have not 
done without fighting. And there is a stone at Venice, 
which was brought from Peiraieus the haven of Athens, on 
which is graven the name of Harold the Tall, and it has 
been thought that this records some exploits of Harold 
Hardrada there. And many strange tales are told of him, of 
his killing dragons and lions, carrying off princesses, and the 
like. In short he is one of the great heroes of Northern 
romance. But there is no doubt that he came back to 
Scandinavia, that he got the kingdom of Norway which had 
been held by his forefathers, and waged a long war with 
Swegen of Denmark. Now at the time of Edward's death 
and our Harold's election the North was at peace. The 



HAROLD HARDRADA. 57 

great warrior was perhaps tired of peace ; and, either of nis 
own thought or because he was stirred up by Tostig, he 
began to plan an expedition against England. Whether 
Tostig had stirred him up or not, it is certain that, when he 
set out, Tostig joined him, bowed to him and became his 
man, and helped him in his warfare against his own brother 
and his own country. 

3. Preparations of Harold of England.— All the sum- 
mer of the year 1066 King Harold of England was doing 
all that man could do to put southern England in a state 
to withstand any attack from Normandy. If he knew at 
all that King Harold of Norway was coming, it was still 
his main business, as he could not be everywhere at once, 
to defend that part of the kingdom which was under his 
own immediate rule and which was exposed to the more 
dangerous enemy. The care of the North he had to leave 
to its own earls, Edwin and Morkere, who were now his 
brothers-in-law, and who, of all men in the island, were the 
most concerned to keep Tostig out of it. King Harold then 
got together the greatest fleet and army that had ever been 
seen in England, and with them he kept watching the coasts. 
This was very hard work to do in those days. For only a 
small part of his army, called his own housecarls, were 
regular paid soldiers ; the greater part were the people of 
the land, whose duty it was to fight for the land when they 
were called upon. Such an army was ready enough to come 
together and fight a battle ; but it was hard to keep them 
for a long time under arms without fighting. And it was 
also very hard to feed them, for of course they could not be 
allowed to plunder in their own land. The wonderful thing 
is that King Harold was able to keep them together so long 
as from May to September. All that time they were waiting 
for Duke William, and Duke William never came. Early in 



58 THE TWO HAROLDS. 

September they could hold out no longer; there was no 
more to eat, and every man wanted to go home and reap his 
own field. So the great fleet and army broke up, and 
the land was left without any special defence. And in 
the course of the month in which they broke up, both 
enemies came. In that very September both King Harold 
of Norway and Duke William of Normandy landed in Eng- 
land. But King Harold of Norway came the first, and in- 
deed the war with him was over before Duke William crossed 
the sea. 

4. The Voyage of Harold of Norway. — Whether then 
he was stirred up by Tostig or whether he set forth of his 
own will, King Harold of Norway got him together a mighty 
fleet, and set sail for England, meaning to win the land and 
reign there. But men said that he and his friends saw 
strange dreams and visions on the way which forebode evil 
to the host. One saw the host of England march to the 
shore, and before them went a wolf, and a witch-wife rode 
on the wolf, and she fed the wolf with carcases of men, and, 
as soon as he had eaten one, she had another ready to give 
him. It is well to mark these stories, which come out of the 
old tales and songs of the Northmen, as they show what 
manner of men they were who now came against England 
for the last time. The whole story of Harold Hardrada is 
told in one of the grandest of the old Northern tales, but, 
when we come to examine it by our own Chronicles, we see 
that only parts of it can be true. But, notwithstanding the 
bad omens, the great fleet sailed on, and reached the isles of 
Shetland and Orkney. These were then a Scandinavian 
earldom, and its earls, Paul and Erling, joined the Nor- 
wegian fleet. It was joined too by other Scandinavian 
princes from Iceland and Ireland, by King Malcolm of 
Scotland, and at last, when King Harold of Norway reached 



THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 59 

the Tyne, by the English traitor Tostig. Whether by agree- 
ment or not, he met the Norwegian fleet with whatever fol- 
lowing he had, he became the man of Harold Hardrada, and 
agreed to go on with him against his brother Harold of 
England. They sailed along the coast of Yorkshire, as 
Deira was now beginning to be called ; they ravaged Cleve- 
land, and met with no resistance till they reached Scar- 
borough. There the Northmen climbed the hills above the 
town, and threw down great burning masses of wood to sec 
it on fire. Then they sailed on; the men of Holderness 
fought against them in vain ; they entered the mouth of the 
Humber; the Northumbrians fled before them, and sailed, 
as the small ships of those times could, a long way up the 
country, up the river Wharfe to Tadcaster. So the Nor- 
wegian fleet was able to sail up the Ouse towards York 
without hindrance. They reached Riccall, a place about 
nine miles from York by land, but much further by the river. 
There the host disembarked ; some were left to guard the 
ships, while the main body of the army, with Harold Hardrada 
and Tostig at its head, set forth to march upon York. 

5. The Battle of Fulford. — It would seem that the 
two brother earls who ruled on either side of the Humber 
had taken very little care to defend their coasts ; but they 
were no cowards when actual fighting came. They were 
now together at York; and when the Northmen came 
near, they marched out with whatever troops they had, and 
met Harold of Norway at Fulford, two miles from York, 
on September 20th, 1066. Events now press so fast on 
one another that we must remember the days of the 
week, and the battle of Fulford was fought on Wednesday. 
Though Fulford is much nearer to York than to Riccall, 
Harold of Norway got thither before the English earls, and 
was able to choose his own ground. The battle was fought 



6o THE TWO HAROLDS. 

on a ridge of ground with the river on one side and a ditch 
and a marsh on the other. On this side was the weakest 
part, the right, of the Norwegian army; here Earl Morkere 
charged, and pressed on for a while. But on the left King 
Harold of Norway, with his royal banner the Landwaster be- 
side him, drove all before him. The English presently fled, 
and not a few, besides those who were slain with the sword, 
were hurled into the river and into the ditch. The two earls, 
with the remnant of their host, found shelter at York. 

6. The Surrender of York. — York held out only 
four days, and made terms with the enemy on Sunday. 
An assembly was held, in which Harold Hardrada was 
received as king, and it was agreed that the men of 
Northumberland should follow him against southern Eng- 
land. Hostages for the city were given at once, and 
hostages for the shire were promised. It is plain that all 
this was not according to the real wishes of the Northum- 
brians; but one would think that Edwin and Morkere must 
have been poor commanders, not to have held out a little 
longer. The Norwegian army now marched to Stamford- 
bridge, about eight miles north-east of York, on the river 
Derwent. Thither the hostages were to be brought. It is 
not very clear why they went away so far from York, and 
still further from their ships at Riccall. Perhaps it was be- 
cause there seems to have been a royal house near at Aid by, 
of which either Tostig or Harold of Norway may have had a 
fancy for taking possession at once. Anyhow the mass of 
the army encamped at Stamfordbridge. There was a wooden 
bridge there across the Derwent, and the host was scattered 
on both sides of the river. 

7. The March of King Harold of England. — The 
men of York needed only to wait one day longer, and 
they would not have had to bow to Harold of Norway. 



HAROLD HARDRADA AT YORK. 6 J 

For King Harold of England was on his march ; that very 
Sunday when they surrendered he was in Yorkshire ; on 
Monday morning he was in York itself. When the fleet 
and army which had guarded the south coast had dispersed, 
the King rode to London, and there he heard the news of 
the coming of Harold of Norway. It is said that he was sick 
at the time ; but he bore up as well as he could to get ready 
his army. And the story ran that King Edward appeared 
in the night to Abbot iEthelsige of Ramsey, and bade him go 
to the King and tell him to be of good cheer and go forth 
and smite the enemies of England. Now this story proves 
something; for those who put it together could not have 
looked on Harold as a perjurer or usurper or one undutiful 
to King Edward, as the Normans said he was. Harold was 
condemned by the Pope at Rome, and yet Englishmen, even 
in after times, did not think the worse of him for that. So a 
tale like this is worth telling. In any case King Harold got 
ready his army, and pressed on as fast as he could. When 
he left London, he could not have known of the battle of 
Fulford ; but he would, hear the news on the way, and it 
would make him press on yet faster. On Sunday, September 
29th, he reached Tadcaster, and reviewed the fleet in the 
Wharfe. The next morning he reached York. The whole 
city received him gladly ; but he passed on through the city 
at once to attack the enemy. The land between York and 
Stamfordbridge lies so that an army coming from York could 
get very near to Stamfordbridge without being seen. So we 
read that King Harold of England and his host came un- 
awares on King Harold of Norway and his host. And 
then, on that same Monday, was fought the first of the two 
great battles of this year, the fight of Stamfordbridge. 

8. The Battle of Stamfordbridge. — The Norwegian 
story has a grand tale to tell of the battle, which may be 



62 THE TWO HAROLDS. 

read in many books. But it cannot be true ; it must have 
been made many years after. For it describes the English 
army as made up chiefly of horsemen and archers, which 
were just the forces which an English army of that time 
had not. In after days, when Englishmen had taken to the 
Norman way of fighting, there were English archers and 
horsemen, and the story must have been written then. But 
in those days Englishmen fought on foot; those who rode 
to the field got down from their horses when the fighting 
began. The heavy-armed first hurled their javelins, and 
then they fought with their great axes, or sometimes with 
swords. The sword was the older weapon; the axe had 
come in under Cnut. The light-armed had javelins, slings, 
any weapons they could get ; the bow was the rarest of all. 
But though we cannot believe the Norwegian story, we know 
something of the battle from our own Chroniclers, and there 
are bits in one of our Latin w T riters, Henry of Huntingdon, 
which are plainly translated from an English song. And 
that song must have been made at the very time, for only a 
few days later men had something else to think about besides 
making songs about Stamfordbridge. In this way we learn 
that the battle began on the right side of the Derwent, that 
nearest to York. The English army came unawares on the 
part of the Northmen who were on that side, who were not 
in order nor fully armed. They were presently cut to pieces. 
But meanwhile the main body on the other side had time to 
form under King Harold of Norway and Earl Tostig, and 
one valiant Northman kept the bridge against the whole ~ 
English host. He cut down forty men with his axe ; one of 
the few archers in the English army shot an arrow at him in 
vain ; at last a man went below the bridge and pierced him 
from below through his harness. Then the English crossed, 
and the real battle began, the fight of the two Harolds. The 



BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE. 63 

fight was long and fearful between two armies equally brave, 
fighting in much the same way, and each led on by a great 
captain. But in the end the English won a complete victory. 
Harold of Norway and Tostig were both killed in the battle, 
and the great mass of the Norwegian army was cut off. 
Tostig was known by a mark on his body and was buried at 
York. And King Harold of England, who had marched into 
York from Tadcaster on the Monday morning, marched back 
again to York from Stamfordbridge on the same Monday 
evening, having overthrown the first of the two enemies who 
threatened him. So the hostages for all Yorkshire were 
never given to Harold of Norway. 

9. The Days after the Battle. — The Norwegian 
army had been cut off at Stamfordbridge; but the Nor- 
wegian fleet was still in the Ouse at Riccall. There 
were Olaf the son of Harold of Norway and the Earls of 
Orkney. King Harold of England offered them peace ; so 
they came to York and gave hostages, and sware oaths 
that they would keep friendship towards England. Some 
days afterwards the feast of victory was kept at York ; and 
while the King was at the board, a messenger came who had 
ridden as fast as he could from the south to say that the 
second enemy was come. Duke William of Normandy had 
landed in Sussex, and was harrying the land. He had indeed 
landed three days after the fight of Stamfordbridge, Thurs- 
day, September 28th, 1066. We must now go back and see 
all that he had been doing since the crowning of King 
Harold of England. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Coming of Duke William. 

1. Duke William's Claims. — Every one who knew 
what had happened between William and Harold must 
have known that after that Duke William would certainly 
claim the English crown whenever King Edward died. 
He would most likely have done so, even if Harold 
had never sworn anything to him; but now that Harold 
had sworn something, whatever it was, he was yet more 
sure to press his claims than before. It is worth while to 
stop and think what William's claim really was. The 
truth is that he had no real claim whatever; but he was 
able in a cunning way to put several things together, 
each of which sounded like a claim. And so, by using one 
argument to one set of people and another to another, he 
was able to persuade most men out of England that he was 
the lawful heir to the English crown, kept out of his right by 
the wrong-doing of Harold. Each of his claims was really 
very easy to answer ; but each was of a kind which was likely 
to persuade somebody, and the whole list together sounded 
like a very strong claim indeed. The real case was this. 
The people of England had a right to choose whom they 
would for their King, and they had not chosen William. It 
was indeed usual to choose out of the one kingly house, and 
Harold did not belong to that house. But then neither did 
William. William indeed said that he was Edward's near 



WILLIAM'S CLAIMS. 65 

kinsman and ought to succeed him. And no doubt in lands 
where the notion of electing kings was going out of memory, 
where hereditary succession was coming in, but where the 
rules of hereditary succession were not yet fully fixed, this 
claim would have an effect on men's minds. But in truth 
William had no more claim by inheritance than he had 
by election. He was indeed Edward's kinsman through 
Edward's mother Emma; but he was not of the house of 
the Old-English kings, which alone could give him any pre- 
ference for the crown above other men. And meanwhile 
there was young Edgar, a nearer kinsman than William, and 
who was of the old kingly house. And it is worth noticing 
that, about a hundred years after, when the notion of heredi- 
tary succession had taken root, men began to speak, very 
often of Harold, and sometimes of William too, as wrong- 
doers against Edgar. But at the time no one thought 
of this. And according to modern law King Edward himself 
would also have been a wrong-doer against Edgar; for by 
modern law Edgar, the grandson of the elder brother, 
would come before Edward the younger brother. But most 
surely no one at the time thought of that either. Then 
William said that Edward had left him the crown. Now 
there can be little doubt that Edward had once made him 
some kind of promise ; but a king of the English could not 
leave his crown to any one ; he could at most recommend 
to the Wise Men, and Edward had recommended Harold. 
William in short had no kind of right to the crown, whether 
by birth, bequest, or election. /But it was easy for him to 
talk as if he had; and it was still easier to bring in all 
manner of other things, which had nothing to do with the 
matter, but which all helped to make a fair show. Harold 
was his man who had forsworn himself against him. Harold 
had done despite to the bones of the Norman saints. These 

F 



66 THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

might be Harold's own personal sins, but the English people, 
hi nothing to do with them. But William found something 
tc say against the English people also. They had, with 
Harold's father at their head, murdered the J^theling Alfred, 
William's cousin, and his Norman companions. They had, 
Harold among them, driven ort many Normans, among 
them Archbishop Robert, and had set up a schismatic arch- 
bishop in his place. They were an ungodly people, who did 
not show respect enough to the Pope ; he, Duke William, 
would go and teach them better ways. And, if all other 
arguments should fail, he could offer lands and honours in 
England to all who would come and help him to conquer Eng- 
land. William in short could show himself all things to all 
men, from a pious missionary to a mere robber. But mark 
that all this care to put himself right in men's eyes shows 
that we have got out of the days of mere violence. When 
the English entered Britain, when the Danes entered Eng- 
land, when the Northmen settled in what was to be Nor- 
mandy, they did not think of putting forth so many good 
reasons for what they did as Duke William put forth now. 

2. Duke William's Challenge. — All these arguments 
sounded very well on the mainland ; but no one listened 
to them in England. Yet it was not for w T ant of hearing 
them. Duke William heard of Edward's death and of 
Harold's election and coronation in one message ; and 
before long he sent a challenge to the new King. As 
we have no exact dates, we cannot tell for certain whether 
this was before or after Harold's journey to Northumber- 
land ; but anyhow it was early in his reign. Nor can we 
say exactly what were the terms of the message. William 
of course called on Harold to do whatever he had sworn 
to do. But, as there are many stories as to what it was 
that Harold had sworn to do, so there are as many 



WILLIAM'S CHALLENGE. 6 J 

stories, and indeed more, as to what it was that William 
now called on him to do. Let him give up the king, a ; 
let him hold it of William as his lord; let him be iri 
of half of it under William; let him in any case marry 
William's daughter; he had at all events promised to do 
that. Now, if the messar* came after Harold had married 
Ealdgyth, this last part must have been mockery. Indeed 
the whole message must have been sent, not with any hope 
or thought that Harold would do anything because of it, but 
simply that William might say that he had given his enemy 
every chance, and might thus seem to put himself yet more 
in the right and Harold yet more in the wrong. For it is 
needless to say that whatever William asked Harold refused. 
As there are different stories about William's challenge, so 
there are different stories about Harold's answer. In some 
accounts he is made to give an answer which covers every- 
thing. His oath was not binding, because it was not taken 
freely. He could not give up his kingdom or hold it of 
William, for the English people had given him the crown, 
and none but they could take it from him. And as for 
marrying William's daughter, he says in one account that 
the daughter whom he had promised to marry was dead, in 
another that an English king could not marry a foreign wife 
without the consent of the Wise Men. He is not made to 
say that he is married already. So the message may have 
come before he married Ealdgyth, or it may be that that 
answer would have seemed to the Normans to be only 
making bad worse. 

3. Duke William's Councils. — Nothing was now left 
to William, if he wished for the English crown, but to try 
and take it by force. His first business then was to see 
what help he could get in his own duchy. He first got 
together a small council of his immediate friends and 

F 2 



68 THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

kinsfolk; they said that they would help him themselves, 
but that they could not answer for anybody else. Then 
he gathered a larger council of all the barons of Normandy 
at Lillebonne. Here there was great opposition. Many 
men said that it was no part of their duty to their duke 
to follow him beyond sea; many also said that the under- 
taking was rash, and that Normandy was not able to con- 
quer England. And in the end the assembly did not come 
to any general vote; but William talked over the barons 
one by one, till they all promised to help him ; each would 
give so many ships and so many men. And when the thing 
was once blazed abroad, men began to take it up eagerly, 
and all Normandy was full of zeal for the undertaking. The 
first thing to be done was to make a fleet ; so trees were cut 
down and ships were built, and all the havens of Normandy 
were busy with the shipbuilding all the summer. In the 
course of August the fleet was ready. All the great men of 
Normandy had made presents of ships. And by that time 
men enough to fill them had flocked in both from Normandy 
and from other lands. 

4. Duke William's Negotiations. — Everything at this 
time was as lucky for William as it was unlucky for Harold. 
Harold had two enemies coming against him at once, and 
he could not bear up against both. So a few years before, 
if William had set out on such an undertaking as the con- 
quest of England, he would have left his duchy open to 
several enemies at once. Just now he had no one to fear. 
All his old enemies were dead; King Henry of France, 
Duke William of Aquitaine, and Count Geoffrey of Anjou. 
We have seen that it is not unlikely that Harold had once 
thought of alliances with some of these princes, in case 
William had any designs on England. There was no 
such chance now. The young King Philip of France was 






William's preparations. 69 

under the guardianship of William's father-in-law Baldwin of 
Flanders. In Anjou there was a civil war. The only neigh- 
bour likely to be dangerous was Conan of Britanny. He 
died about this time in the Angevin war, and there is a tale 
that William contrived to poison his bridle, his gloves, and 
his hunting-horn. The strange thing is that it is a Norman 
writer who mentions this, and that the Bretons say nothing 
about it. But it was not like William to poison any one, 
and it is certain that, next to his own subjects, no people 
followed him so readily as the Bretons. To the King of 
the French William sent an embassy; some even say that 
he offered to hold England of him. At any rate he made 
things safe on the side of France. And he sent to the young 
King Henry of Germany, the son of the Emperor Henry. 
Here England had, by the death of the Emperor, really lost a 
friend, and not merely the enemy of an enemy. Neither of 
these kings gave William any help ; but they did all that he 
wanted ; they did nothing against him, and they did not hinder 
their subjects from joining his army. But William's greatest 
negotiation of all was with the Pope, Alexander the Second. 
He tried to show, not only that Harold was a perjurer and 
a sinner against the saints, whom the Pope ought to punish, 
but also that his enterprise against England would tend 
greatly to the advantage of the Roman Church. Discipline 
should be better enforced in England, and the money which 
was paid to the Pope, called Romescot or Peferpence, should 
be more carefully paid. And besides all this, there were 
men at Rome who could see how much the authority of the 
Pope would gain, if it were once allowed that he had the 
right to dispose of crowns or to judge between one claimant 
of a crown and another. Some of the cardinals said that 
the Church ought not to meddle in matters of blood or to 
set Christians to fight against one another. But the voice of 



70 THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

these just men was overruled, chiefly by the arguments of 
Hildebrand the Pope's chief counsellor, who was then Arch- 
deacon of Rome, and who was afterwards himself the great 
Pope Gregory the Seventh. So Pope Alexander, seemingly 
without hearing any one on the English side, ruled that 
Harold was a perjured man, and that the cause of Duke 
William was righteous. So he gave the Duke a hallowed 
banner and a ring with a hair of Saint Peter. William was 
thus able to attack England, her king, and her freedom, as if 
he had been going forth on a holy war against the enemies 
of the faith. 

5. The Voyage of Duke William. — In the course of 
August all was ready. The fleet was built and manned, 
and the army was ready to cross into England. The 
place of meeting was at the mouth of the Dive. The 
number of ships and of men is very differently told us; 
but the Norman poet Wace, whose father was there, says 
that the number of ships was 696. They were only large 
boats for transport, with a single mast and sail. When 
they were come together at the Dive, they were kept a whole 
month waiting for a south wind to carry them to England. 
It would have been better for England if the south wind had 
blown at once; for in August King Harold and his army 
were still ready to meet them ; but, as it was, the Normans 
did not come till the first army was disbanded, and till 
Harold was busy with the war in the north. At last, though 
a south wind did not come, a west wind did, and the fleet 
sailed to Saint Valery at the mouth of the Somme, in Count 
Guy's land of Ponthieu. They were now much nearer to 
England than they had been at the Dive ; but they still could 
not cross till Wednesday, September 27, two days after the 
fight of Stamfordbridge. Then at last the south wind blew, 
and the fleet crossed in the night. The Duke's own ship, the 






WILLIAM'S LANDING. 7 1 

Mora, the gift of the Duchess Matilda, sailed first with a 
huge lantern at its mast to guide them. On Thursday 
morning the Duke of the Normans and his host landed at 
Pevensey in Sussex. They landed under the walls of the 
Roman city of Anderida, which had stood forsaken and 
empty, ever since it had been stormed by the South-Saxons 
nearly six hundred years before. There was just now no 
force in those parts able to hinder the Norman landing. 
There is a story that, as William landed, his foot slipped, 
and he fell. But, as he arose with his hands full of English 
earth, he turned and said that he had taken seizin or posses- 
sion of his kingdom, for that the earth of England was in his 
hands. Anyhow he took his first possession of English 
ground at Pevensey, where he left a force. He then, on 
Friday, September 29th, marched to Hastings, which he 
made his head-quarters. He there threw up a mound and 
made a wooden castle. And from this centre he began to 
harry the land far and wide, in order to make King Harold 
come the sooner and fight. 

6. The March of King Harold. — The news of Duke 
William's landing was, as we have seen, brought to King 
Harold at York as fast as it could be brought. And 
King Harold set out on his march southwards as fast 
as man could set out. With his housecarls and such 
men of the northern shires as were ready to follow 
him at once, he set forth for London. Edwin and Mor- 
kere were bidden to follow with all speed at the head 
of the whole force of their earldoms, while the King sent 
forth to gather the men of his own Wessex and of the earl- 
doms of his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, to come to the 
muster at London. Thus the men of all southern and eastern 
England came in at the King's word ; but the main strength 
of the north never came. Edwin and Morkere kept their 



72 THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

men back, most likely hoping to be able to hold their own 
earldoms against either Harold or William. Thus King 
Harold got little help in his second struggle from the land 
which he had saved in the first. While the troops were 
coming in, the King went to the church which he had himself 
built at Waltham, and prayed there. And men said that 
signs and wonders were wrought at his coming ; for 
that the image on the Holy Cross bowed its head, as if to 
say, l It is finished/ So the canons of Waltham feared that 
harm would come to their King and founder. And two of 
them followed King Harold's host to the place of battle, 
that they might in anywise see the end. 

7. Duke William's New Message. — The host was 
now ready to set forth for Sussex, all but the men of 
those shires whose force never came at all. And now 
another messenger came from Duke William to the 
King in London. A monk of Fecamp, a great abbey in 
Normandy near the sea-coast, came and stood before the 
King of the English on his throne. He bade him come 
down from it and abide a trial at law between himself and 
the Duke who claimed the crown by the bequest of Edward, 
and whose man he had himself become. The King — so the 
Norman writers say — answered that his oath to William, as 
being unwilling, was of no force, and that any bequest to 
William was made of no strength by Edward's later recom- 
mendation of himself. This answer, it will be seen, did not 
go to the root of the matter ; but it was answer enough to 
this particular message. The King then sent his message 
to Duke William to offer his friendship and rich gifts, if 
he would go quietly out of the land ; but that, if he was 
bent on fighting, he would meet him in battle on the next 
Saturday. Then Earl Gyrth gave his brother wise but cruel 
counsel. He said that, as Harold had anyhow sworn to 



HAROLD'S MARCH. 73 

William, it was not good that he should meet him in fight. 
Let him, Gyrth, go against Duke William with the host which 
had already come together; let the King meanwhile wait 
for fresh troops, and lay waste all the land between London 
and the sea, so that, even if the Normans won the fight 
against Gyrth, they would have nothing to eat, and their 
duke would be driven to go away. But King Harold said 
that he would never let his brothers and his people go forth 
to the fight while he himself shrank from it, and that he 
would never burn a house or lay waste a field in the land 
over which he was set to be king. So the King marched 
from London with his host, and on Friday, October 13th, 
he reached the hill of Senlac, seven miles inland from the 
Duke's camp at Hastings, and there waited for the attack of 
the Normans. 

8. King Harold's Camp. — The English, as has been 
already said, were used to fighting on foot. They were 
stout men to hurl their javelins and to meet the enemy 
hand to hand with their axes ; but they had no horsemen 
and very few archers. The Normans, on the other hand, 
were the best horsemen and archers in the world. It 
was therefore King Harold's plan not to attack the 
enemy, but to let them attack him; not to meet them in 
a broad plain fit for horsemen, but to hold a strong place 
in attacking which the Norman horses would be of less 
use. So he pitched his camp on a hill which stands out 
from the main line of hills, and the sides of which are in 
parts very steep ; he fenced it in with a palisade, and with 
a ditch on the south side where the ground was less steep. 
The land between Hastings and Senlac was woody, broken, 
and rolling ground, and the ground at the foot of the hill 
must then have been a mere marsh. The Normans would 
therefore have much ado to get to the hill and ride up it, 



74 THE COMING OF DUKE WILLIAM. 

and, if they got to the top, they would find the English 
standing there ready to cut them down. So wisely had 
King Harold chosen his place of fighting ; for he knew the 
land of Sussex well. 

9. The Last Challenge. — Both King Harold and Duke 
William sent spies to see what the other was doing. It 
is said that an English spy came back and said that in 
the Norman camp were more priests than soldiers. In 
an earlier time both Normans and English had worn their 
beards; but now the Normans shaved the whole face like 
priests, while the English wore only their whiskers on the 
upper lip. So the spy took the shaven Normans for 
priests. Then King Harold laughed, and said that they 
would find these priests right valiant fighting men. One 
tale tells that King Harold and Earl Gyrth rode out to- 
gether to spy out the Norman camp, and came back un- 
hurt. And it is also said that now, after the camp was 
pitched on Senlac, Duke William sent yet a last message 
and challenge to King Harold. Once more, would Harold 
give up the kingdom to William, according to his oath ? 
Would he and his brother Gyrth hold the kingdom of Wil- 
liam as his men? Lastly, if he declined either of these 
offers, would he meet William in single combat? The 
crown should be the prize of the victor, and the blood of 
their followers on both sides would be spared. But King 
Harold refused all these offers ; for to have accepted any of 
them, even the single combat, would have been to acknow- 
ledge that the war was his personal quarrel with William, 
and not the quarrel of the people of England whose land 
William had unjustly invaded. It is plain that Harold had 
no right to stake the crown on the issue of a single combat. 
If William killed Harold, that would give William no right to 
the crown, which it was for the people of England to give 






William's last challenge. 75 

to whom they would. And if Harold killed William, the 
Norman army was not the least likely to go away quietly ; 
there would have been a battle to fight after all. So King 
Harold assuredly was right in refusing to stake the fate of 
England on his own single person. All these stories, it 
must be remembered, come from the Norman writers ; our 
English Chronicles cut the tale very short. But we may be 
pretty sure that there is some truth in them, and this story 
of the challenge seems very likely. Anyhow by Friday 
evening, every man in each army knew that the great fight 
for the crown and the freedom of England was to be fought 
on the morrow. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Great Battle. 

1. The Authorities. — Before we tell the tale of the great 
fight on Senlac which forms the centre of our whole story, it 
will be well to stop and think for a while of the sources from 
which the tale comes. Our own Chroniclers tell us very little ; 
the defeat of the king and people of England was a thing on 
which they did not love to dwell. We have therefore to get 
most of the details from Norman sources. Of these there are 
several, among which four are of special importance. There 
is the Latin prose account by William, Archdeacon of Poi- 
tiers, who was in the Conqueror's army, and the account in 
Latin verse by Guy, Bishop of Amiens, who wrote very soon 
after. Both of these were courtiers and flatterers of William ; 
still we may learn a good deal from them. A more honest 
writer, though not so near to the time, is Master Wace, a 
canon of Bayeux, whose father crossed with William and was 
therefore most likely in the battle. Wace wrote the history 
of the Norman dukes in French rime, called the Roman 
de Rou, and in it he gives a full account of the battle. 
He had clearly taken great pains to find out all that he 
could about the fight, and about everybody, on the Norman 
side at least, who was in it. But more precious than all is 
the famous Tapestry of Bayeux, which contains the whole 
history of the Conquest, from Harold's voyage to the end of 
the battle, wrought in stitchwork. This was made very soon 



THE MORNING OF THE BATTLE. *7 

j after the time by order of Bishop Odo for his church at 
!j Bayeux. These are the main authorities ; from them, and 
! from a sight of the ground, it is not hard to make out the 
; story. And we get incidental pieces of knowledge, such 
| as names of men who were in the battle on the English 
side, from all manner of sources here and there, among 
j them from the great record called Domesday, of which we 
| shall presently speak. 

2. The March of the Normans. — The Norman writers 
! tell us that Duke William's army spent the night before 
the battle, the night of Friday, October 13th, in prayer 
and shrift, while the English spent it in drinking and sing- 
ing. And certainly, if our men sang some of the old 
battle-songs, we shall not think the worse of them. But 
this is the kind of thing which we often find the writers 
of the victorious side saying of a defeated army. Any- 
how both armies were quite ready for their work early 
on Saturday morning. The Normans marched from Hast- 
ings to the height of Telham, opposite Senlac. There they 
made ready for the fight ; the knights mounted their war- 
horses and put on their harness. The Duke's hauberk was 
by some chance turned the wrong way ; but his ready wit 
turned this into a good omen, he said that a Duke was going 
to be turned into a King. Then he mounted his horse ; 
he looked out at the place where his spies told him that 
the English King was posted, and he vowed that, where 
Harold's standard stood, he would, if he won that day's fight, 
build a minster to Saint Martin of Tours. Then the host 
set out in three divisions. On the left Count Alan of Bri- 
tanny commanded the Bretons, Poitevins, and Mansels. 
Among them was one English traitor, Ralph of Wader or 
of Norfolk. He was seemingly banished by Edward or 
Harold, and, as he was of Breton descent by his mother, he 



78 THE GREAT BATTLE. 

now came back among his mother's people. On the right 
Roger of Montgomery, one of the most famous lords of 
Normandy, commanded the French and the mercenaries 
from all parts. In the midst were the Normans themselves, 
and in the midst of them was the banner which had come 
from Rome, borne by a knight of Caux named Toustain (that 
is, Thurstan) the White. Close by it rode the Duke and his 
two half-brothers, Bishop Odo of Bayeux and Count Robert 
of Mortain. The Duke carried^ round his neck the relics on 
which Harold had sworn. In each of these three divisions 
were three sets of soldiers. First went the archers and 
other light-armed foot, who were to try to put the English 
into disorder with their arrows and other missiles. Then 
came the heavy-armed foot, who were to try and break down 
the palisade, and lastly the horsemen. The archers had no 
defensive armour ; the horsemen and heavy-armed foot had 
coats of mail and helmets with nose-pieces. The knights 
had their kite-shaped shields, their long lances carried over- 
hand, and their swords for near fight. The Duke and the 
Bishop alone carried maces instead of swords. The mace 
was a most terrible and crushing weapon ; Odo, it was said, 
carried it rather than a sword or lance, because the canons 
of the Church forbade a priest to shed blood. In this array 
they had to cross the rolling and marshy ground between the 
hills of Telham and Senlac. 

3. The Array of the English. — Meanwhile King 
Harold marshalled his army on the hill, to defend their 
strong post against the attack of the Normans. All were 
on foot ; those who had horses made use of them only 
to carry them to the field, and got down when the time 
came for actual fighting. So we see in the Tapestry King 
Harold riding round his host to marshal them and ex- 
hort them ; then he gets down and takes his place in the 



THE ARRAY OF THE ARMIES. 79 

battle on foot. The army was made up of soldiers of 
two very different kinds. Th the King's personal 

following, his houseearls, his own thanes, and the picked 
troops generally, among them the men of London who 
claimed to be the King's special guards, and the men of 
Kent who claimed to strike the first blow in the battle. 
They had armour much the same as that of the Normans, 
with javelins to hurl first of all, and for the close I 
either the sword, the older English weapon, or more com- 
monly the great Danish axe which had been brought in 
by Cnut This was wielded with both hands, and was the 
most fearful of all weapons, if the blow reached its mark ; 
but it left its bearer specially exposed while dealing the blow. 
The men were ranged as closely together as the space 
needed for wielding their arms would let them ; and, Ik 
the palisade, the front ranks made a kind of inner defence 
with their shields, called the shield-wall. The Norman w r 
were specially struck with the close array of the English, and 
they speak of them as standing like trees in a wood. Be- 
sides these choice troops, there were also the general 1 
of the neighbouring lands, who came armed anyhow, with 
such weapons as they could get, the bow being the rarest ot 
all. These inferior troops were placed to the right, on the 
I exposed part of the hill, while the King with his choice 
troops stood ready to meet Duke William himself. The 
King stood between his two ensigns, the national k. 
the dragon of Wesscx, and his own Standard, flag 

with the figure of a fighting man wrought on it in g 
Close by the King Stood his brother Gyrth and Leofwine, 
and his other kinsfolk — among them doubtless his uncle 
JElfwig, the Abbot of the New Mincer at Winchester. 
who came to the light with twelve of his 
Abbot of Peterborough, was also there; but we do not hear 



8o THE GREAT BATTLE. 

of any of the bishops. Whether Earl Waltheof was there 
is not certain; it is certain that Edwin and Morkere were 
not. 

4. The Beginning of the Battle. — By nine in the 
morning, the Normans had reached the hill of Senlac, 
and the fight began. But before the real attack was 
made, a juggler or minstrel in the Norman army, known 
as Taillefer, that is the Cleaver of Iron, asked the Duke's 
leave to strike the first blow. So he rode out, singing songs 
of Charlemagne, as the French call the Emperor Charles 
the Great, and of Roland his paladin. Then he threw his 
sword up in the air and caught it again ; he cut down two 
Englishmen and then was cut down himself. After this 
mere bravado came the real work. First came a flight of 
arrows from each division of the Norman army. Then the 
heavy-armed foot pressed on, to make their way up the hill 
and to break down the palisade. But the English hurled 
their javelins at them as they came up, and cut them down 
with their axes when they came near enough for hand- 
strokes. The Normans shouted " God help us ;" the English 
shouted "God Almighty," and the King's own war-cry of " Holy 
Cross " — the Holy Cross of Waltham. William's heavy-armed 
foot pressed on along the whole line, the native Normans 
having to face King Harold's chosen troops in the centre. 
The attack was vain ; they were beaten back, and they could 
not break down the palisade. Then the horsemen them- 
selves, the Duke at their head, pressed on up the hill-side. 
But all was in vain ; the English kept their strong ground ; 
the Normans had to fall back; the Bretons on the left 
actually turned and fled. Then the worse-armed and less 
disciplined English troops could not withstand the temptation 
to come down from the hill and chase them. The whole 
line of the Norman army began to waver, and in many parts 



THE NORMANS BEATEN BACK. 8 1 

to give way. A tale spread that the Duke was killed. 
William showed himself to his troops, and with his words, 
looks, and blows, helped by his brother the Bishop, he 
brought them back to the fight. The flying Bretons now 
took heart ; they turned, and cut in pieces the English who 
were chasing them. Thus far the resistance of the English 
had been thoroughly successful, wherever they had obeyed 
the King's orders and kept within their defences. But the 
fault of those who had gone down to follow the enemy had 
weakened the line of defence, and had shown the Normans 
the true way of winning the day. 

5. The Second Attack. — Now came the fiercest struggle 
of the whole day. The Duke and his immediate following tried 
to break their way into the English enclosure at the very point 
where the King stood by his standard with his brothers. The 
two rivals were near coming face to face. At that moment Ear! 
Gyrth hurled his spear, which missed the Duke, but killed his 
horse and brought his rider to the ground. William then 
pressed to the barricade on foot, and slew Gyrth in hand to 
hand fight. At the same time the King's other brother Earl 
Leofwine was killed. The Duke mounted another horse, 
and again pressed on ; but the barricade and the shield-wall 
withstood all attempts. On the right the attack of the French 
division had been more lucky ; the palisade was partly broken 
down. But the English, with their shields and axes, still 
kept their ground, and the Normans were unable to gain 
the top of the hill or to come near the standard. 

6. The Feigned Flight. — The battle had now gone on 
for several hours, and Duke William saw that, unless he quite 
changed his tactics, he had no hope of overcoming the resist- 
ance of the English. They had suffered a great loss in the 
death of the two earls, and their defences were weakened at 
some points ; but the army, as a whole, held its ground as 

G , 



$2 THE GREAT BATTLE. 

firmly as ever. William then tried a most dangerous stratagem, 
his taking to which shows how little hope he now had of gain- 
ing the day by any direct attack. He saw that his only way 
was to bring the English down from the hill, as part of them 
had already come down. He therefore bade his men feign 
flight. The Normans obeyed ; the whole host seemed to be 
flying. The irregular levies of the English on the right again 
broke their line ; they ran down the hill, and left the part 
where its ascent was most easy open to the invaders. The 
Normans now turned on their pursuers, put most of them to 
flight, and were able to ride up the part of the hill which was 
left undefended, seemingly about three o'clock in the afternoon. 
The English had thus lost the advantage of the ground ; they 
had now, on foot, with only the bulwark of their shields, to 
withstand the horsemen. This however they still did for 
some hours longer. But the advantage was now on the 
Norman side, and the battle changed into a series of single 
combats. The great object of the Normans was to cut 
their way to the standard, where King Harold still fought. 
Many men were killed in the attempt ; the resistance of the 
English grew slacker ; yet, when evening was coming on, 
they still fought on with their King at their head, and a 
new device of the Duke's was needed to bring the battle to 
an end. 

7. The End of the Battle. — This new device was to bid 
his archers shoot in the air, that their arrows might fall, as he 
said, like bolts from heaven. They were of course bidden 
specially to aim at those who fought round the standard. 
Meanwhile twenty knights bound themselves to lower or bear 
off the standard itself. The archers shot ; the knights pressed 
on ; and one arrow had the deadliest effect of all ; it pierced the 
right eye of King Harold. He sank down by the standard : 
most of the twenty knights were killed, but four reached the 



DEATH OF HAROLD. 83 

King while he still breathed, slew him with many wounds, and 
carried off the two ensigns. It was now evening; but, 
though the King was dead, the fight still went on. Of 
the King's own chosen troops it would seem that not a man 
either fled or was taken prisoner. All died at their posts, 
save a few wounded men who were cast aside as dead, but 
found strength to get away on the morrow. But the ir- 
regular levies fled, some of them on the horses of the slain 
men. Yet even in this last moment, they knew how to re- 
venge themselves on their conquerors. The Normans, 
ignorant of the country, pursued in the dark. The English 
were thus able to draw them to the dangerous place behind 
the hill, where not a few Normans were slain. But the 
Duke himself came back to the hill, pitched his tent there, 
held his midnight feast, and watched there with his host 
all night. 

8. The Burial of Harold. — The next day, Sunday, the 
Duke went over the field, and saw to the burial of his own men. 
And the women of the neighbourhood came to beg the bodies 
of their kinsfolk and friends for burial. They were allowed to 
take them away to the neighbouring churches. But Duke 
William declared that, if the body of Harold was found, he, as 
a perjured man, excommunicated by the Pope, should not 
have Christian burial. Harold's mother Gytha offered a vast 
sum — the weight in gold of the body, it was said — to be 
allowed to bury him at Waltham. But William refused, and 
bade one of his knights, William Malet by name, to bury him, 
without Christian rites, but otherwise with honour, under a 
cairn on the rocks of Hastings. Yet there was a tomb of King 
Harold at Waltham, and it was always said there that two of the 
canons, who had followed Harold to the place, asked for his 
body, that, when they could not tell it for his wounds, they 
called in the help of a woman named Edith, whom he had loved 

G 2 



84 THE GREAT BATTLE. 

before he was King, and that she knew it by a mark. They 
were then allowed to bury him at Waltham. The truth most 
likely is that King Harold's body fared very much as we know 
that Earl Waltheofs body fared ten years later. That is, he 
was first of all buried on the rocks, but afterwards William, 
now King, relented and allowed him to be buried in his own 
church. Anyhow there can be no doubt that Harold died 
in the battle, as all the writers who lived at the time, both 
Norman and English, say distinctly. But, as often happens 
in such cases, there afterwards grew up a tale which said 
that he was not killed, but only badly wounded, that he 
was carried off alive, and lived for many years, dying at last 
as a hermit at Chester. The like is told of Harold's brother 
Gyrth ; but there is no reason to believe either tale. 

9. Effects of the Battle. — It must be well understood 
that this great victory did not make Duke William King 
nor put him in possession of the whole land. He still held 
only part of Sussex, and the people of the rest of the 
kingdom showed as yet no mind to submit to him. If 
England had had a leader left like Harold or Gyrth, Wil- 
liam might have had to fight as many battles as Cnut had, 
and that with much less chance of winning in the end. 
For a large part of England fought willingly on Cnut's 
side, while William had no friends in England at all, except 
a few Norman settlers. William did not call himself King 
till he was regularly crowned more than two months later, 
and even then he had real possession only of about a third of 
the kingdom. It was more than three years before he had 
full possession of all. Still the great fight on Senlac none 
the less settled the fate of England. For after that fight 
William never met with any general resistance. He never 
had to fight another pitched battle against another wearer or 
claimant of the English crown. He was thus able to conquer 



EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE. 85 

the land bit by bit. N How this came about we shall see 
in the next chapter. But it is very important not to make 
either too much or too little of the Battle of Senlac or 
Hastings. It did not make William either formally King or 
practically master of the kingdom. But, as things turned 
out, the result of the battle made it certain that he would 
become both sooner or later. 



CHAPTER IX. 

How Duke William became King. 

1. The Election of Edgar. — After the great battle, 
Duke William is said to have expected that all England 
would at once bow to him. In this hope he was dis- 
appointed. For a full month after the battle, no one 
submitted to him except in the places where he actually 
showed himself with his army. The general mind of 
England was to choose another king and to carry on 
the war under him. But it was hard to know whom to 
choose. Harold's brothers were dead ; his sons were 
young, and it is not clear whether they were born in lawful 
wedlock. Edwin and Morkere had by this time reached 
London ; but no one in southern England was the least 
likely to choose either of them. The only thing left to do 
was to choose young Edgar, the last of the old kingly house. 
The Wise Men in London therefore chose Edgar as king. 
He did one or two acts of kingly power ; but he was never 
full king, as not being crowned. He would doubtless have been 
crowned at Christmas, had things turned out otherwise. When 
he was chosen, Edwin and Morkere withdrew their forces 
and went back to their own earldoms, taking their sister 
Ealdgyth, the widow of Harold, with them to Chester. They 
most likely thought, either that William would be satisfied 
with occupying the lands which had been held by Harold 
and his brothers; or else that they would be able to hold their 



WILLIAM'S MARCH TO LONDON. 87 

own earldoms against him. By so doing, they destroyed the 
last chance of England, which was for the whole land to 
rally faithfully round Edgar. Southern England alone, 
weakened by the slaughter on Senlac, was quite unable to 
withstand William. 

2. William's March. — After the battle William waited five 
days at Hastings, thinking that men would come in and bow 
to him. But as none came in, he marched on into Kent. 
The main strength of that land had been cut off in the battle ; 
resistance was therefore not to be thought of, and one place sub- 
mitted after another. So did Dover, where was one of the few 
castles in England, and Canterbury. At this point William's 
march was checked by sickness ; but even then he was able to 
send messengeis to Winchester. That city, the dwelling-place 
of the widowed Lady Edith, also submitted. He then marched 
towards London; but he did not cross the Thames; his 
policy was to win the great city by first occupying the lands 
all round it. He however defeated a sally of the men of 
London and burned the suburb of Southwark. He then 
marched along the right bank of the Thames to Wallingford, 
where he crossed the river. He then struck eastward to 
Berkhampstead, meaning to hem in London from the north. 
After Berkhampstead, he had no need, in this first campaign, 
to march any further as an enemy. 

S. William's Election and Coronation. — The men of 
London were at first eager to carry on the war. But they 
were weakened by the treason of the Northern earls, and, 
as William gradually came round to the north of the city, 
their hearts failed them. The Wise Men and the citizens 
at last agreed that there was nothing to be done but to 
submit to William. So the King-elect Edgar gave up his 
claim, and went with Archbishop Ealdred and the other 
chief men, and offered William the crown. It is said that 



88' HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING. 

he had some scruple in accepting it while he actually held 
so small a part of the kingdom ; but he could not fail to see 
how great a gain it would be to him in winning the rest, if 
he could give himself out as the King of the English, law- 
fully chosen and crowned. He therefore came to London, 
and on Christmas- day he was regularly crowned and anointed 
by Ealdred, as Harold had been on the day of the Epiphany. 
At his crowning his Norman soldiers kept guard outside the 
minster. And when the people within were asked whether 
they would have Duke William for their king, and they 
shouted, Yea, Yea, the Normans outside thought that some 
harm was doing to the Duke ; so — a strange way of helping 
him, one would think — they set fire to the houses near the 
church. Others rushed out of the church to quench the fire, 
and there was much confusion and damage. Thus the new 
King's old and new subjects quarrelled on the very day of 
his crowning, though hardly by any fault of his. Meanwhile 
a fortress, the first beginning of the famous Tower of London, 
w r as rising to keep the city in order. While it was building, 
the King withdrew to Barking in Essex, not far from 
London. 

4. The Submission of the Northern Earls. — While 
King William was at Barking, most of the chief men of 
the north of England came and bowed to him, as 
the chief men of the south had done at Berkhampstead. 
Edwin and Morkere saw by this time that William had no 
mind for half a kingdom ; so they came and bowed to him, 
and were restored to their earldoms. Most likely Waltheof 
did the same. So did Copsige, the former favourite and 
lieutenant of Tostig, and other men of power in those parts. 
William received them all graciously. But it would seem 
that Oswulf did not come. At least it is certain that he 
gave the new King some offence ; for before long, in 



WILLIAM'S CROWNING. 89. 

February, William deprived him of his earldom and gave it 
to Copsige. 

5. William's Position. — William was now King of 
the English, as far as a regular election and coronation 
and the submission of the chief men of the land could 
make him so. But it must not be thought that he had 
as yet any real authority over the whole kingdom. He 
had actual possession of the south-eastern part, from 
Hampshire to Norfolk. Of the chief cities he held Lon- 
don, Winchester, Canterbury, Norwich, and most likely 
Oxford. And it would seem that he was acknowledged 
in part of Herefordshire, where a Norman, Osbern by 
name, one of the old builders of Richard's Castle, 
had been sheriff under Edward. But in all northern, 
western, and north-western England, he was only king so 
far as that there was no other king. No Norman soldier 
had been seen anywhere near York, Exeter, Lincoln, or 
Chester. The submission of the earls carried with it no 
real obedience on the part of their earldoms. But it suited 
William's policy, now that he was acknowledged as king, 
to act in all things as if he had full power everywhere. Thus 
he restored to Edwin and the rest the lands and offices 
which he had as yet no means of taking from them. Thus 
he professed to give the earldom of Oswulf to Copsige. 
This last story teaches us what the real state of things was. 
The truth is that Copsige, an enemy of Oswulf s, wished to 
supplant him. It suited his ends to be able to use William's 
name, and it suited William to give him authority to do so. 
But William was not able to give Copsige any real power in 
Northumberland. Very soon after he had gone thither as 
the earl appointed by the new king, he was killed by the 
partisans of Oswulf, who kept the earldom till later in the 
year he was himself killed by a robber. 



90 HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING. 

6. William's Confiscations and Grants of Land.— 

In William's reading of the law, he had himself been, ever 
since Edward's death, not indeed full king, which he could 
not be till he was crowned and anointed, but the only 
person who had a right to become king. Those who had 
hindered him from taking his crown peaceably, those above 
all who had fought against him at Senlac, were rebels and 
traitors. Harold, he held, was no king, but only an usurper ; 
in the legal language of William's reign, he is never called 
King but only Earl, and all his acts as king are looked on 
as of no strength. In short, in William's view, as no English- 
man had fought for him, as many Englishmen had fought 
against him, the whole land of the kingdom, except of course 
Church land, was forfeited to the crown. He might, if he 
chose, take it all, and either keep it himself or grant it to whom 
he would. But in the greater part of England he could not 
as yet do this, and he was too wise to try to do it anywhere 
all at once. Much land in England, that which was called 
folkland, was in the beginning the common land of the nation. 
This had been for a long time coming more and more to 
be looked on as the land of the king. And now that the 
king was a foreign conqueror, the change was fully carried 
out, and the folkland passed to the new king as his own. 
So did the great estates of Harold and the rest of the house 
of Godwine, and of others who had died on Senlac. All this 
King William took to himself, to keep as the de??iesne of 
the crown or to reward his Norman followers, as he would. 
As for the lands of men who submitted quietly, he seems at 
first to have commonly granted them back again. For this 
he often took a payment ; we read of the English generally 
buying back their lands, and also of particular cases where 
this was done. But it was the universal rule that no man, 
Norman or English, had any right to lands, whether he had 



GRANTS OF LAND. 9 1 

held them before or not, unless he could prove a grant from 
King William, which was best proved by having the King's 
writ and seal to show. Thus, from the very beginning of 
his reign, as any man, Norman or English, offended him 
or did him good service, William was always seizing on land 
and making grants of land till, by the end of his reign, by 
far the greater part of the land of England had changed 
hands. Most of it was granted to Normans or other 
strangers, but Englishmen who in any way won his favour 
both kept their old lands and received new grants. All this 
began now ; but it only began ; it was only step by step 
that the chief offices and estates of England passed from 
the hands of Englishmen into the hands of strangers. As 
yet it was only in south-eastern England that he could either 
take or grant anything. 

7. William's Visit to Normandy. — King William 
now thought that it was time to go for a while to his 
own land; so he crossed into Normandy for the feast of 
Easter in the year 1067. It was natural that he should 
wish to show himself to his old friends and subjects 
in his new character of King and Conqueror. And it 
was part of his policy too to treat England as if it was 
thoroughly his own, and thereby to see how far it really 
was so. In so doing it was needful to provide for the 
government of the kingdom while he was away. The north 
he could not help leaving as it was ; the part of the kingdom 
which was really in his power he put under the rule of his 
brother Bishop Odo and his chief friend William Fitz-Osbern. 
To them he also gave earldoms, Kent to Odo and Hereford 
to William. But neither then nor afterwards did he set 
earls in the old fashion over the whole land ; he set them 
only on the coasts or borders which were likely to be 
attacked. Thus the Earl of Hereford had to keep the land 



92 



HOW DUKE WILLIAM BECAME KING. 



against the Welsh, and the Earl of Kent to keep it against 
any attacks from the mainland. Then the King called on 
all the chief men of England to go in his train to Normandy. 
He took with him Edgar the king of a moment, Archbishop 
Stigand, the Earls Edwin, Morkere, and Waltheof, and 
other men of power in the land. They all went as his 
honoured guests and friends, though they were in truth 
rather to be called hostages and prisoners. He then passed 
through many parts of Normandy and gave gifts to many 
churches. He stayed there till December. By that time 
events had happened which called him back to England 



CHAPTER X. 

How King William won the whole Kingdom. 

1. The Regency of Bishop Odo and Earl William. — . 

The rule of those whom King William left in England 
to govern in his name was not of a kind to win much love 
from the English people. William himself seems to have done 
all that he could to gain the good will of his new subjects, 
consistently with firmly establishing his own power. He 
could be harsh, and even cruel, when it served his purpose ; 
but at no time does he seem to have been guilty of mere 
wanton oppression for oppression's sake. He was always 
strict in punishing open wrong-doers of any kind, of what- 
ever nation. It was otherwise with his two lieutenants, 
Bishop Odo and Earl William Fitz-Osbern. If they did 
not actually take a pleasure in oppression, they at any rate 
allowed their followers to do whatever they chose, and, 
whatever wrong an Englishmen suffered, he could get no 
redress. Above all things, they everywhere built castles 
and allowed others to build them, and we have already seen 
with what horror our forefathers looked on the building of 
castles. It would almost seem as if oppression was worst 
immediately under the eyes of the two regents. At least 
it was in their own earldoms, in Odo's earldom of Kent and 
in William Fitz-Osbern's earldom of Hereford, that special 
outbreaks against the new King's authority now broke out. 
But the two movements were of a different kind. In Kent, 



94 HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

which had fully submitted to William, the attempt was strictly 
a revolt against an established government. In Hereford- 
shire, where the whole land had not submitted, men still 
tried, just as they might have done before the great battle, 
to keep the foreign invaders out of a district which they had 
not yet entered. 

2. Eadric in Herefordshire. — The chief leader in resist- 
ance to the Normans on the Herefordshire border was Eadric, 
a powerful man in those parts who had never submitted to 
the new king. He still kept part of the land quite free, hold- 
ing out in the woods and other difficult places, whence the 
Normans called him the Wild or Savage. Earl William's men 
were always attacking him, but in vain. At last he made an 
alliance with the Welsh Kings Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, those 
to whom the kingdom of Gruffydd had been given by Harold. 
With their help he laid waste the land which had submitted 
to the Normans, and carried off great plunder. In fact the 
Normans were never able to overcome Eadric, and we shall 
hear of him again more than once. 

3. Count Eustace at Dover. — The Kentishmen mean- 
while sought for help beyond the sea, as Eadric had sought 
for help beyond the border ; but it was a very strange helper 
that they chose. They sent to Count Eustace of Boulogne, 
the brother-in-law of King Edward, the same who had done 
so much harm at Dover in Edward's days, and who had been 
one of the four who mangled the dying Harold. They must 
indeed have been weary of Odo when they sent for Eustace to 
help them. Why Eustace listened to them is not very clear. 
William had given him lands in England \ we do not hear of 
any quarrel between them, and Eustace could hardly have 
thought that he would be able to drive William out and to 
make himself king instead. However this may be, he sailed 
across with some troops, and was joined by a large body 



WILLIAM COMES BACK. 95 

of English, chiefly Kentishmen. Their first attempt was on 
the castle of Dover ; but Eustace lost heart and gave way ; 
the garrison sallied; his whole force was routed, and he 
himself escaped to his own land. 

4. William's Return. — Besides those who thus openly 
revolted against William or withstood his power, other English- 
men showed their discontent in various ways. Some left the 
country altogether ; others tried to get help La various parts, 
above all from King Swegen in Denmark. Swegen, it will be 
remembered, was nephew of Cnut and cousin of Harold, and 
there had been talk of choosing him king five-and-twenty years 
before instead of Edward. If any foreign prince could really 
have delivered England, Swegen was the man to do it. But 
he missed the right time when so much of the land was still 
unsubdued. The worst was that Englishmen could not 
agree to act together. One district rose at one time and 
one at another. Some were for Swegen, some for Edgar, 
some for the sons of Harold ; Edwin and Morkere were 
for themselves. So there was no common action against 
William, and the land was lost bit by bit. In December 
William came back. He held an assembly at Westminster, 
where much land was confiscated and granted out again. 
He also caused Count Eustace to be tried in his absence 
and outlawed. As Count of Boulogne, Eustace owed William 
no allegiance; but as his man, holding lands in England, 
he could be thus tried and outlawed. In after times Eustace 
gained the King's favour again, and got back his lands. 
William also sent embassies to various foreign princes, to 
hinder anything from being done against him in their lands. 
Especially he sent the English Abbot iEthelsige as ambassador 
to King Swegen. And he made two appointments which are 
worth noticing. The bishopric of Dorchester was vacant ; 
so he gave it to a Norman monk, Remigius of Fecamp. 



\ 



g6 HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

This was the beginning of a system which he carried on 
through his whole reign, that of giving bishoprics, as they 
became vacant, to Normans and other foreigners. Also the 
earldom of Northumberland was vacant by the death of 
Oswulf. William had not the least authority in Northumber- 
land ; yet he made a show of again granting — or rather in 
truth of selling — the earldom to Gospatric, a man of the kin 
of the old earls. But Gospatric was as yet no more able 
to take possession than Copsige had been. 

5. The Siege of Exeter. — In the spring of 1068 
William began seriously to undertake the conquest of 
that part of England where his kingship was still a mere 
name. All western, central, and northern England — all 
Northumberland in the old sense, the greater part of 
Mercia, and a large part of Wessex — was still unsubdued. 
At this moment the state of things in the West was 
specially threatening. Exeter, above all, the greatest city 
of the West, was the centre of all resistance. Gytha, the 
widow of Godwine and mother of Harold, was there, most 
likely with her grandsons, Godwine, Edmund, and Magnus. 
The citizens of Exeter made leagues with the oiher towns of 
the West ; men joined them from other parts of England ; if 
the other unconquered districts had risen at the same time, 
and if they could all have agreed on some one course, it may 
be that even now William could have been driven out. 
But while the West was in arms, the North stayed quiet, 
and even in Exeter itself men were not fully of one mind. 
Before William went forth to war, he sent a message to the 
men of Exeter, demanding that they should swear oaths to 
him and receive him into the city. They sent word that they 
would pay him the tribute which they had been used to pay 
to the old kings, but that they would swear no oaths to him 
nor receive him within their walls. That is, they would be 



SIEGE OF EXETER. 97 

a separate commonwealth, paying him tribute, but they 
would not have him as their immediate king. William was 
not likely to allow this kind of half-submission; so he 
began his march against Exeter, taking care to call on the 
force of the shires which were already conquered to come 
with him. To strike fear into his chief enemy, he took and 
harried the towns of Dorset on his way. The great men of 
the city were frightened and sent to William, making sub- 
mission and giving hostages. But the commons disowned 
the submission; so William laid siege to the city, after he 
had put out the eyes of one of the hostages. Exeter held 
out bravely for eighteen days, and was then taken by under- 
mining one of the towers. William then entered the city, 
and granted his pardon to the citizens. Gytha and her 
companions meanwhile escaped by the river. The King 
then caused a castle called Rougemont, or the Red Hill, to 
be built to keep the city in his power, and he greatly raised 
the amount of its tribute ; but he seems to have done no 
further harm. 

6. The Conquest of the West. — The taking of 
Exeter was followed, at once or before long, by the 
conquest of all western England. Dorset, Devonshire, 
Somerset, Cornwall, and most likely Gloucestershire and 
Worcestershire, were now added to William's dominions. 
But Eadric still held out in his corner of Herefordshire. 
William was now master of all Wessex and East-Anglia 
and of part of Mercia. His conquest of the western lands 
was clearly followed by many confiscations and grants 
of land ; above all the King's brother Count Robert got 
nearly all Cornwall, and large estates in other shires. 
Among these he got the hill in Somerset where the holy 
cross of Waltham had been found, and which the Normans 
called Montacuie or the peaked hill. William now thought 

H 



98 HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

that things were quiet enough for him to bring his wife to 
England; so at Pentecost, 1068, the Lady Matilda was 
hallowed to Queen at Westminsteu by Archbishop Ealdred. 

7. The First Conquest of the North. — Meanwhile, 
just after the West was subdued, the North was in arms. 
Though Edwin, Morkere, and Gospatric were nominally 
William's earls in Northern England, yet their earldoms 
had never submitted, and the earls themselves seem to 
have lived chiefly at William's court. But now all Northern 
England made ready to resist, York being naturally the 
centre of the movement, as Exeter had been in the West. 
They got the Welsh to help them, and sent messages to 
Scotland and Denmark. The whole land was in arms. 
And now Earl Gospatric went out and joined his own 
people, and so did Edgar the iEtheling, and seemingly 
the Earls Edwin and Morkere also ; so there was no lack 
of leaders. King William marched to meet them as far as 
Warwick, seemingly his first conquest in this campaign. 
Near that town the English army met him \ but the hearts 
of Edwin and Morkere failed them. They submitted, and 
were restored to their earldoms and to William's seeming 
favour; one of the King's daughters was even promised in 
marriage to Edwin. The army now dispersed ; only a 
party of the bolder men marched northwards and held Dur- 
ham. Gospatric, with Edgar and his mother and sisters, 
found shelter with King Malcolm in Scotland. William had 
now nothing to do but to march northward, taking one 
town after another. Sonre, it would seem, were taken by 
force, while others submitted peaceably. In all cases he 
built a castle to keep the town in order; but there was a 
great difference in his treatment of one town and shire and 
another. In some parts many more Englishmen kept their 
lands and offices than in others ; these were doubtless those 



FIRST CONQUEST OF THE NORTH. 99 

which submitted most quietly. In this way he occupied most 
likely Leicester and certainly Nottingham, and so went on to 
York. The city submitted quietly; but a castle was built. 
Having thus gained the capital of the North and the main 
centre of resistance, William did not this time go on any 
further, but marched back another way, occupying Lincoln, 
Stamford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon. These two cam- 
paigns of the year 1068 gave William a greater part of Eng- 
land than he had won in 1066. Northumberland in the 
narrower sense, with Durham, and north-western Mercia, with 
Chester as the chief city, were all that now remained unsub- 
dued. But William's hold on some of the lands which had 
submitted was still very insecure. 

8. The Sons of Harold. — This same year 1068 the 
three sons of Harold, Godwine, Edmund, and Magnus, 
who had escaped with their grandmother Gytha, came 
back by sea with a force from Ireland, doubtless chiefly 
Irish Danes. But they did nothing except plunder. They 
were driven off from Bristol, and then fought a battle 
with the men of Somerset, who were led by Eadnoth, a 
man who had been their father's Staller or Master of 
the horse, but who was now in the service of William. 
Eadnoth was killed, and Harold's sons sailed away, having 
only made matters worse. Some time in the same year 
William had a son born to him in England, namely his 
youngest son Henry. He was the only one of his sons who 
was born after his father was crowned ; so he alone, accord- 
ing to English notions, was a real iEtheling. Moreover he 
was brought up as an Englishman. He was afterwards King 
Henry the First. 

9. The First Revolt of York. — Neither the North 
nor the West long remained quiet. The year 1069 was 
still fuller of fighting than the year 1068. But this was 

H 2 

LofC.i 



IOO HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

the year in which England was really conquered. At the 
Christmas feast of 1068 William again made a grant of the 
earldom of Northumberland in the narrower sense. That 
land was still quite unsubdued ; but now that he had York, 
it would be easier to attack Durham and the parts be- 
yond. So the King granted the earldom to one Robert of 
Comines, who set out with a Norman army to take posses- 
sion. But he fared no better than Copsige had done. The 
men of the land determined to withstand him ; but, through 
the help of the Bishop Jjkhelwine, he entered Durham peace- 
ably. But he let his men plunder ; so the men of the city and 
neighbourhood rose and slew him and all his followers. This 
success encouraged the men of Yorkshire and their leaders 
who had fled to Scotland. Gospatric and Edgar came 
back; they were welcomed at York and laid siege to the 
castle. But King William at once marched north, drove them 
away, built a second castle, and left his friend Earl William of 
Hereford in command. He then sent a force against Dur- 
ham, but it got no further than Northallerton. No sooner 
was the King gone than the English again attacked the 
castles at York, but they were defeated by Earl William. 
And a little later, in June, Harold's sons came again and 
plundered in Devonshire, but were driven away. So the 
land was harried alike by friends and by foes. 

10. The Coming of the Danes. — All this shows how 
all efforts were in vain, simply for want of a real leader, 
a king of men like Harold or Edmund Ironside. English- 
men could fight; but their fighting was of no use, when 
there was no steadiness in the chief men, no concert 
between one part of the land and another. In fact they 
seem to have fought best when they had no earls or other 
great men at their head, when each district fought for 
itself. In the autumn of this year 1069 there was the best 



THE DANES AT YORK. IOI 

chance of deliverance of all. A large part of England was 
in arms at once. The West rose; the men of Somerset and 
Dorset besieged the new castle of Montacute; the men of 
Devonshire and Cornwall besieged the new castle of Exeter. 
On the Welsh border Eadric with a host of Welsh and Eng- 
lish attacked Shrewsbury; Staffordshire too, which most likely 
had not yet submitted, was in arms. But all these movements 
were put down one by one ; save that Staffordshire was left 
alone for a while. Meanwhile yet greater things were doing 
in the North. King Swegen of Denmark at last sent a great 
fleet to the help of the English, under his brother Osbeorn 
and his sons Harold and Cnut. After some vain attempts on 
Dover, Sandwich, Ipswich, and Norwich, the Danes entered 
the Humber, and the English came joyfully to meet them. 
All the chief men of the north joined them. Edgar and 
Gospatric came back from Scotland, and this time Earl 
Waltheof joined them. William's commanders at York, 
William Malet, he who had first buried Harold's body, and 
Gilbert of Ghent, sent word to the King that they could hold 
out for a whole year ; but it was not so. The host, Danish 
and English, began to march on York, and Archbishop 
Ealdred, worn out with troubles, died as they were coming. 
The Norman commanders now set fire to the houses near 
the castles, and a great part of the city was burned. The 
Danes and English soon reached York ; the Normans sallied, 
and were, some cut to pieces, some made prisoners, the two 
leaders being among the prisoners. In this fight Earl V 
theof slew many of the enemy, and won himself great fame. 
The castles were broken down, and York was now quite free 
from the Normans. But, instead of holding the city, the 
English dispersed, and the Danes went back to their ships. 

11. The Final Conquest of the North.— When King 
William heard of the fall of York, he at once marched 



102 HOW KIXG WILLIAM WOX THE WHOLE KIXGD03I. 

northwards. But when he found that his enemies were 
all scattered, he left his brother Robert in Lindesey 
to act against the Danes, while he himself went and sub- 
dued Staffordshire, seemingly by hard fighting. He then 
marched to York, and recovered the city. And now he did 
one of the most frightful deeds of his life. He caused all 
northern England, beginning with Yorkshire, to be utterly laid 
waste, that its people might not be able to fight against 
him any more. The havoc was fearful ; men were starved 
or sold themselves as slaves, and the land did not recover 
for many years. Then King William wore his crown and 
kept his Christmas feast at York. In January 1070 he set 
out to conquer the extreme north, which was still unsubdued. 
The Earls Waltheof and Gospatric now craved his pardon. 
They w r ere restored to their earldoms, and Waltheof received 
the King's niece Judith in marriage. William then went on 
to Durham, where the Bishop and nearly everybody had fled 
from the city, and ravaged the whole land as he had ravaged 
Yorkshire. He then went back to York by a very hard 
winter's march, and settled the affairs of his new conquest. 
He was now at last master of all Northumberland, Deira and 
Bernicia alike. 

12. End of the Conquest,— Still William had not yet 
possession of all England. Not only did Eadric still hold out 
on his border, and it may be that the Isle of Ely had never 
fully submitted ; but one whole corner of England, and one of 
the chief cities, still held out. This was Chester. Now then 
in February 1070 William made another hard winter march 
from York to Chester. The sufferings of the army were fright- 
ful, and many of the mercenaries mutinied. But William went 
on, and received the submission of the last free English city, 
whether peaceably or by fighting we know not. He built 
castles at Chester and Stafford. He then marched to Salis- 



THE CONQUEST COMPLETED. 

bury, where he reviewed and 1 his army, as having 

ih»w won the whole land. And so in trutli he had. If a few 
points were still unsubdued, no whole shire or great town 
held out against him. At last, more than three v r his 

coronation, he was really king of the whole land in fact as well 
as in name. From henceforth such opposition to him as we 
still hear of was no longer resistance to an invader, but rather 
revolt against an established, though foreign, government. 

13. The New Archbishops.— William had now time to 
turn his mind to the affairs of the Church. Things had 
naturally got into confusion during the time of warfare ; and 
besides this, William had made up his mind to subdue the 
Church of England as well as the state, or rather to make the 
Church a means whereby to hold the kingdom more firmly. 
As he gradually transferred the greatest estates and bi- 
temporal offices from Englishmen to strangers, so it was part 
of his policy to do the same with the chief offices of the Church. 
Mis rule was that, as the bishops died, Normans or other 
strangers should be put in their places, and that those of the 
English bishops against whom any kind of charge could be 
brought should be deprived without waiting for their de 
With the abbots the rule was less strict ; their temporal posi- 
tion was not so important as that of die bishops. So, tb 
several English abbots were deposed and many for 
abbots were appointed, still many more Englishmen kept 
their places than among the bishops, and some Englishmen 
even received abbeys from William himself. In doing all 
this he had the help of Pope Alexander and of those who 
advised him; for it was part of William's policy to strengthen 
the connexion of England with Rome, though he iirm!\ 
fused to give up a whit of his own royal power. At the 
ist (A' 1070 two papal legates came, and, when the 
King wore his crown, it was they who put it on his head. A 



104 HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

council was then held, in which Archbishop Stigand was 
deposed, as his right to the archbishopric had all along been 
thought doubtful. His successor was one of the most famous 
scholars in Europe. This was Lanfranc of Pavia in Lom- 
bardy, who had settled in Normandy and become a monk, 
and was now abbot of the monastery of Saint Stephen at 
Caen, which William himself had founded. Lanfranc be- 
came Archbishop in August, and was William's right hand 
man for the rest of his reign. The other archbishopric 
also was vacant by the death of Ealdred of York. At Pen- 
tecost this was given to a Norman, Thomas, a canon of 
Bayeux, also a great scholar and a careful bishop. For 
many of William's appointments were very good in them- 
selves, if only the men chosen had not been strangers. 
These two new archbishops went the next year to Rome to 
receive from the Pope the pallium or badge of metropolitan 
dignity; so England had two foreign primates. Stigand's other 
bishopric of Winchester was also given to another Norman, 
Walkelin. And so the work went on through the whole of 
William's reign, till at the end, Saint Wulfstan of Worcester 
was the only Englishman who was a bishop in England. 

14. The Danes at Ely. — Before the two foreign arch- 
bishops were consecrated, there was again fighting in 
England. The Danish fleet, which after all had done so 
little for England, stayed in the Humber while William 
was subduing Northumberland. William then gave bribes 
to the Danish commander Osbeorn, and it was agreed 
that the Danes should sail back when the winter was over, 
and that meanwhile they might plunder in England. Thus 
again was the land harried by friends and foes alike. At last, 
in May 1070, the Danes sailed to the Fenland, and showed 
themselves at Ely. The people welcomed them, believing 
that they would win the land ; most likely they were read}' 



HERE WARD AT ELY. IOj 

to have Swegen for king. Thus the revolts began almost 
at the moment when the conquest was finished. We now 
hear for the first time of the famous name of Hereward. 
All manner of strange and impossible tales are told of him ; 
but very little is known for certain about him, though 
what we do know is quite enough to set him before us as 
a stout champion of England. He had held lands in 
Lincolnshire, and he had fled away from England, but when 
or why is not known. He would seem to have come back 
about the time when the Danes came to Ely, and he joined 
himself with them and with the men of the land who helped 
them. The abbey of Peterborough was now vacant by the 
death of its Abbot Brand, and William had given it to a 
Norman named Turold. He was a very stern man, and 
came with a body of Norman soldiers to take possession of 
the abbey. But Hereward was before him. Lest the wealth 
of the abbey should be turned to help the enemy, he came 
(June i, 1070) with the Danes and the men of the land, and 
plundered the monastery. The Danes now went away, 
taking with them much of the spoil of Peterborough. But, 
when they got home, King Swegen banished his brother Earl 
Osbeorn for having taken bribes from William and having 
done so little for England. 

15. The Defence of Ely. — About this time Eadnc the 
Wild submitted to the King, which marks that all resistance 
was over on his side of England. But the revolt went on in 
the Fenland. The monastery of Ely was the centre of res 
ance, as it stood in a land which then was really an island and 
which was very easy to defend. The Abbot Thurstan, who 
had been appointed by King Harold, and his monks, wei 
first zealous for the patriots. Men flocked to the isle from all 
parts, and they held out all the winter o{ 1070 and through 
the greater part of the next year. In the spring of 107 1 the 



106 HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM. 

two earls, Edwin and Morkere, at last left William's court, 
being, it is said, afraid lest the King should put them in 
bonds. Edwin tried to get to Scotland, but he was killed 
on the way, either by his own men or by Normans to whom 
he was betrayed. But Morkere made his way to Ely and 
helped in the defence of the isle. Other chief men came 
also ; but it is clear that the soul of the enterprise was Here- 
ward. There are many tales told of his exploits ; but this at 
least is certain. William came and attacked the isle from all 
points, and there was much fighting for many months, in 
which William Malet,whom the Danes had released, was killed. 
At last in October 107 1, the isle surrendered. Some say 
that the monks of Ely, when the King seized their lands out- 
side the isle, turned traitors; others that Morkere and the other 
chiefs grew fainthearted. Anyhow the war was at an end. 
The King took possession of the isle; he built a castle at Ely 
and laid a fine on the abbey, while Morkere and others were 
kept in prison. Hereward alone did not submit, but sailed 
out into the sea unconquered. There are several stories of 
his end. It seems most likely that he was at last received 
into William's favour, and even served under him in his wars 
on the mainland. But some say that he was killed by a 
party of Normans who set upon him without any orders from 
the King, and that he died fighting bravely, one man against 
many. 

16. Summary. — Thus we see that, after five years from 
William's first landing, he was in full possession of the kingdom 
and had put down all opposition everywhere. The great battle 
had given him real possession of south-eastern England only; 
but it had given him the great advantage of being crowned 
king before the end of the year. During the year 1067 
William made no further conquests ; all western and northern 
England remained unsubdued; but, except in Kent and 



WILLIAM FULL KltiG* IO7 

Herefordshire, there was no fighting in any part of the land 
which had really submitted. The next two years were the 
time in which all England was really conquered. The former 
part of 1068 gave William the West. The latter part of that 
year gave him central and northern England as far as York- 
shire, the extreme north and north-west being still unsub- 
dued. The attempt to win Durham in the beginning of 

1069 led to two revolts at York. Later in the year all the 
north and west was again in arms, and the Danish fleet came. 
But the revolts were put down one by one, and the great 
winter campaign of 1069-1070 conquered the still unsub- 
dued parts, ending with the taking of Chester. Early in 

1070 the whole land was for the first time in William's pos- 
session; there was no more fighting, and he was able to give 
his mind to the more peaceful part of his schemes, what we 
may call the conquest of the native Church by the appoint- 
ment of foreign bishops. But in the summer of 1070 began 
the revolt of the Fenland, and the defence of Ely, which 
lasted till the autumn of 107 1. After that William was full 
king everywhere without dispute. There was no more 
national resistance ; there was no revolt of any large part of 
the country. There were still wars within the isle of Britain ; 
but they were wars in which William could give out that he 
was, as King of the English, fighting for England. And 
there was one considerable revolt within the kingdom o( 
England ; but it was not a revolt of the people. The 
quest of the land, as far as fighting goes, was now finished. 
We have now to see how the land fared under a king who 
claimed to be king by law, but who had to win his crown 
by fighting at the head of an invading army. His nil, 

we shall see, was neither that of a king who had r< 

ceeded according to law nor yet that o{ a mere invader who 

did not even make any pretence to legal right 



CHAPTER XL 

King William's later Wars. 

1. The Affairs of Wales. — W t illiam was now king 
over all England, but he had not yet won that lordship 
over the whole of Britain which had been held by the 
old Kings of the English. But it was his full purpose 
to win this also, as well as the rule of his immediate king- 
dom. But of course neither the Scots nor the Welsh were 
inclined to give him any greater submission than they could 
help, and there was much fighting on both borders. The 
care of the Welsh marches William put into the hands of 
his earls. It was only on the borders and on the exposed 
coasts that he placed earls at all. Besides his brother 
Odo in Kent and his friend William Fitz-Osbern at Here- 
ford, there was Earl Gospatric in Northumberland to guard 
the northern border against the Scots, and Earl Ralph 
in Norfolk to guard the east coast against the Danes. But 
he did not appoint any earls to succeed Edwin and Mor- 
kere. Parts however of Edwin's earldom were given to 
two great Norman leaders, Roger of Montgomery who 
became Earl of Shrewsbury, and Hugh of Avranches who 
became Earl of Chester. Their duty, along with the Earl of 
Hereford, was to keep the Welsh march. They received 
vast estates and special powers, the Earl of Chester espe- 
cially being more like a vassal prince, than an ordinary earl. 
All these earls had much fighting with the Welsh, and they 



AFFAIRS OF WALES AND SCOTLAND. I CO, 

took much land from them and built many castles. Earl 
r especially built a castle to which he gave the name of 
his own castle in Normandy, Montgomery, whence a town. 
and afterwards a shire, took its name. The Welsh princes 
moreover were always fighting among themselves, and they 
were often foolish enough to call in the Normans against 
one another. So the English border advanced. At last in 
1 08 1 it is said that King William went on a pilgrimage to 
Saint David's, and about the same time he founded the 
castle at Cardiff. Of the three earls of the border, William, 
Roger, and Hugh, the last two outlived King William. But 
Earl William Fitz-Osbern left England in 107 1, to marry 
Richildis Countess of Flanders and to try to win her county. 
There he was killed, and was succeeded in his earldom by 
his son Roger, of whom we shall hear presently. 

2. The First War with Scotland. — King Malcolm 
of Scotland had all this while given himself out as a 
friend of the English. He had at least promised them 
help, and he had at any rate given all English exiles a 
welcome shelter in Scotland. But, as if England had 
become an enemy's country now that it was conquered by 
William, in the course of the year 1070 he invaded Nort- 
humberland and harried the land most cruelly, destroying 
whatever little the Normans had left. Yet none the 
when Edgar and his sisters came to seek shelter again, he 
received them most kindly, and after a little while he married 
Edgar's sister Margaret. This marriage was of great im- 
portance in the history of Scotland. For Margaret brought 
English ways into Scotland and made many reforms, and 
for her goodness she was called a saint. From this time 
the English part of the dominions of the King of Scots, 
namely the earldom of Lothian and those parts of Scotland, 
like Fife, which took to English ways, had altogether the upper 



HO KING WILLIAM'S LATER WARS. 

hand over the really Scottish part of the land. No doubt 
this marriage made William look on Malcolm as still more 
his enemy, but he could not as yet avenge his inroad. The 
most part of 107 1 he was busy at Ely, and in 1072 he was 
wanted in Normandy, where the affairs of Flanders made 
things dangerous. But in August 1072 he set out to invade 
Scotland by sea and land. It is to be noticed that Eadric, 
the hero of Herefordshire, went with him. For we can well 
believe that, now that William was really king over the 
whole land, Englishmen were quite ready to serve him in a 
war with the Scots, especially after Malcolm's invasion. But 
there was no fighting ; for Malcolm came and met William 
at Abernethy and became his man, as, since the days of 
Edward the Unconquered, the Kings of Scots had ever 
been to the Kings of the English. Thus had William won, 
not only the kingdom of all England, but the lordship of all 
Britain, like the kings who had been before him. 

3. Affairs of Ireland.— There is in truth some reason to 
believe that William sought for a lordship even beyond the 
isle of Britain, such as the kings who were before him had 
never had. The English Chronicle says that, if King William 
had lived two years longer, he would have won all Ireland by 
his wisdom, without any fighting. We cannot tell how this 
might have been ; but it is certain that, though William never 
had the rule of any part of Ireland, yet in his day England 
began to have much more to do with Ireland, both with the 
Danes who were settled there and with the native Irish. This 
showed itself in bishops from Ireland coming to England 
to be consecrated by Lanfranc. This was admitting an 
English supremacy in spiritual things which was very likely 
to grow into a supremacy in temporal things also. 

4. Affairs of Northumberland. — As William came 
back from Scotland, it is to be noticed that he confirmed 



AFFAIRS OF NORTIIVMHERLAND AND MAINE. II! 

the privileges of the bishopric of Durham. He had 

i that see to a new bishop, Walcher from Lower Lor- 
raine. The bishops of Durham gradually to I 

I temporal rights, like the earls of Chester. Had all 
earls and all bishops been like these two, the kingdom of 

and might have fallen to pieces, as Germany did. 1 . 
William also took away the earldom of Northumberland from 

.Uric, and gave it to Waltheof, who was already Earl of 

tiampton and Huntingdon. Earl Waltheof and Bis 
Walcher were close friends. But Waltheof began his rule 
by a great crime. This was killing the sons of Carl, though 
they had been his comrades at the taking of York, bee 
their father Carl, a chief man in the North, had killed Wal- 
theof s grandfather Ealdred. 1 - the custom of deadly 
feud, which was common in Scotland long after. Gospatric 
went to Scotland, where King Malcolm gave him lands. 
But he either kept or afterwards received lands in England, 
and his descendants went on as chief men in the North. 
One son of his, Doltin, seems to have received from 
King Malcolm a small part of Cumberland, namely the 
land about Carlisle. This was not yet part of the kingdom 
I England. 

The War of Maine. — William's next warfare \ 
on his own side of tl The city and land oi' Maine. 

which he had won in 1063, now revolted him. 

men of Maine fust chose as their count Hugh the 

1 >f the Lombard Marqu< his m< 

Gersendis was th of their last count Herbert But 

she and her husband and son did not with the 

citizens ol Le Mans; so the people proclaimed a 

That i<, Le Mans should h had 

striven to be. The whole land of 1 the citi 

but they were betrayed by the nobles; so that the story of 



ua king William's later wars. 

Le Mans is like the story of Exeter. Then King William 
in 1073 crossed the sea, taking with him a great host 
of English, among whom, there is some reason to think, 
was Hereward himself. One is sorry to think that a man 
who had fought so well for freedom in his own land should 
go and fight against freedom in another land ; but we may 
be sure that the English of that day were glad to fight with 
French-speaking men anywhere. With this army William 
laid waste the whole land, and at last the city surrendered, 
and was, as usual with him, well treated. Le Mans lost 
its new freedom ; but it kept all its old rights and customs. 
Then William made peace with Count Fulk of Anjou, who 
also had claims over Maine; William's eldest son Robert 
was to do homage to Fulk for the county. Thus King 
William won the land of Maine the second time, ten years 
after his first conquest. 

6. William's Enemies. — At this time of his reign William 
had to spend a great part of his time out of England. King 
Philip of France was his enemy and Count Robert of Flanders. 
And Count Robert's daughter was married to Cnut of Den- 
mark, which helped to ally two of his enemies more closely. 
But the strangest thing is that one German writer says that in 
1074 it was fully believed that King William was thinking of 
an expedition into Germany and of getting himself crowned 
at Aachen. Another German writer, on the other hand, tells 
the story quite the other way, and says that King Henry of 
Germany (who was afterwards Emperor) sent to ask William's 
help against his own enemies. Either way such stories show 
that William was very much in men's thoughts and mouths 
everywhere. And King Philip and Count Robert made a 
very subtle plot for William's annoyance. This was to plant 
the JGtheling Edgar at Montreuil, in the land between 
Normandy and Flanders. He would thus be able to get 



THE REVOLT OF THE EARLS. I 1 3 

together English exiles, men from France and Flanders, 
and volunteers and m< s of all kinds, to trouble the 

Norman frontier. Edgar was now in Scotland with 

r Queen Margaret He set out to go to France, but 

driven back by a storm. And then William saw that it 
was his best policy to win Edgar over to himself. So he 
sent for him to Normandy, and he kept him for many \ 
at his court in great honour. 

7. The Revolt of the Earls. — Meanwhile a revolt broke 

out in England, which was not, like the revolt of Ely, a rising 

of the English people against strangers, but a revolt of a few of 

the great men for their own ends. Roger, Earl of Hereford, 

his sister Emma in marriage to Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, 

nst the King's orders, which was in itself an orTence. 
Then at the bride-ale they began to talk treason, and to plot 
how ihey might kill the King and divide the kingdom. Earl 
Waltheof too was there ; but it is not clear how far be con- 
sented to their schemes. On the whole it seems most likely 
that he at first agreed and swore, and then repented and 
drew back. He went and confessed to Archbishop Lan- 
franc, who told him to go and tell the King everything. So 
Waltheof crossed to Normandy and told everything, and the 

g received him kindly and kept him with him. Mean- 
while the two other earls had revolted openly. But they 
found few men to help them, except their mei and 

a number of Bretons who were attached to Earl Ralph. 
Ralph moreover made a with Kin 

sent jrel again. Th h, who might 

have risen for fen, thought thai 

likelj le of a revolt like this, and ti. : for the 

King against the earls. Earl 1 

Wulfstan and A! in bisb 

and I | Ralph, who fled to Denmark, 

I 



114 KING WILLIAM'S LATER WARS. 

while his wife defended the castle of Norwich against the 
King. The Danes, under Cnut, came at last, and sailed up 
to York ; but they did nothing except rob the minster. 
Norwich castle surrendered ; the revolt was altogether put 
down, and those who had a hand in it were punished in 
various ways ; but none of them were put to death. 

8. The Death of Waltheof. — Ralph of Norfolk had 
escaped, and his latter end was better than his beginning ; for 
he and his wife went to the crusade and died on the way. 
Roger of Hereford was kept in prison, some say for the rest of 
his days. But Waltheof, whose crime, if he had done any, was 
less than theirs, was in Normandy with the King, and seemingly 
in his favour. He came back to England with the King, and 
was soon after put in prison. He was twice brought for trial 
before an assembly of the great men, and the second time, 
at Pentecost 1076, he was condemned to death and was 
beheaded on the hills near Winchester on May 31. This was 
the only time in his whole reign that William put any man to 
death except in war. And it is strange that William, who 
had forgiven his enemies, Waltheof himself among them, over 
and over again, should have dealt so much more harshly 
with Waltheof than with Roger and others who were far 
more guilty. But it is said that Waltheof had many Norman 
enemies, his wife Judith among them. His earldom of North- 
humberland was given to his friend Bishop Walcher. The 
English looked on him as a saint and martyr, and believed 
that miracles were wrought at his tomb at Crowland. And 
men generally believed that, after Waltheofs death, King 
William's good luck, which had hitherto followed him in 
such a wonderful way, began to 'forsake him. 

9. The Rebellion of Robert.— And so it did, whether 
the death of Waltheof had anything to do with it or not. 
The very same year the Conqueror suffered his first defeat. 



REBELLION OF ROBERT. II' 

For some reason or other, he besieged Dol in Britanny ; but he 
failed and had to fly. Then his son Robert got discontented, 
because his father refused to give up any part of his domii 
to him. Robert went away, and tried to get various pr; 
to help him. King Philip did give him help, and many of the 
young nobles of Normandy joined him. In 1079 Philip put 
him in the castle of Gerberoi, and William came to besiege it. 
In a sally, Robert overthrew his father, who was saved by the 
Englishman Tokig, son of Wiggod of Wallingford. But 
William could not take Gerberoi, and he was persuaded to 
be reconciled to Robert. Meanwhile Malcolm of Scotland 
made another frightful inroad into Northumberland, and in 
1080 Robert was sent to chastise him. Robert did very 
little, but on his way back he founded a new castle by 
the Tyne, whence the town of Newcastle took its name. 
Robert then again quarrelled with his father, and wen. 
away into France, never to come back as long as his fa 
lived. 

10. The Death of Matilda. — William and his Queen 
Matilda had lived in all love and confidence up to the time of 
William's quarrel with Robert Then for the first time they 
also quarrelled, because Matilda would send gifts* to her son in 
his banishment, against his father's orders. A little later, in 
1083, she died. Their second son Richard had already died in 
a strange way while hunting in the New Forest, and oik 
their daughters died while on her way to marry a Spanish 
But, besides Robert, William's other sons, William and 
Henry, were living; one daughter, Const ft to 

Count Alan of Britanny, and another, Adela, to Count 
i< n of Chartres. Anotlu : I nun. Just 

about the time of Matilda's death there was another revolt in 

Maine, where the Viscount Hubert held the castle of Sainte- 
tnne for three years (1083-K all Willi.. 



Tl6 KING WILLIAM'S LATER WARS. 

power. The castle could not be taken, and at last William 
was driven to receive Hubert to his favour. 

11. The Death of Bishop Walcher. — William had 
thus during these years to undergo several domestic losses 
and several defeats in war on the mainland. But his 
hold on England was as firm as ever. After the revolt 
of the earls, there was nothing which could be called a 
rebellion, only a local outbreak, in which a local governor 
lost his life on account of one particular wrong deed. 
This was Bishop Walcher of Durham, to whom William 
had given the earldom of Northumberland. This bishop 
seems, as a temporal ruler, to have been weak rather than 
oppressive ; he is not charged with wrong-doing himself, 
but with failing to punish wrong- doers. He had several 
favourites, both English and foreign, who did much mischief. 
At last some of them murdered one Ligulf, an Englishman 
of the highest rank in the country, and withal a chief friend 
of the bishop himself. But even these men he spared, so 
that the people believed that he had himself a hand in 
Ligulf s murder. So when an Assembly met to judge the case, 
the people, headed by the chief Englishmen present, killed 
the bishop and all his followers. Then Odo was sent to 
punish them \ but he took money, and put innocent men to 
death, and again harried the land. This was in 1080, the 
year that Robert was sent against the Scots. This was not 
a revolt against the Norman king as such, but rather a riot, 
such as might have happened just as well under Edward or 
Harold, if any earl of theirs had given the same offence. 

12. Death of Cnut of Denmark. — Thus there was 
nothing, except the inroad of Malcolm, to be called war in 
England after the revolt of the earls in 1075. But in Wil- 
liam's last years a very formidable attack on England was 
threatened. Cnut of Denmark, who had twice sailed up 



DEATH OF WALCHER. II 7 

the Humber, never quite gave up the thoughts of conquering 
or delivering England. When he himself became 1 
made great preparations, and was joined by his father-in- 
law Robert of Flanders, and by Olaf of Norway, the 
son of Harold Hardrada. In 1085 Cnut got together a 
great fleet, and William brought over a vast host of mercena- 
ries to guard the land. But a quarrel arose between Cnut 
and his brother Olaf, and the next year Cnut was killed in a 
church by his own men, and was called a saint and martyr. 
Thus the danger was turned away from William. 

13. Summary. — We have thus seen how William, hav 
gradually conquered all England, went on to assert the old 
lordship of the English crown over the rest of Britain. He 
could not however, any more than the kings before him, keep 
matters wholly quiet on the Welsh and Scottish borders. In 
Wales the power of his earls advanced ; but King Malcolm, 
though he became William's man, remained a dangerous 
enemy. In England there was no real popular revolt after the 
submission of Ely. The English generally did not favour the 
rebel earls, and the death of Bishop Walcher was a riot rather 
than a revolt On the whole, the land remained quite quiet 
under William's rule. Beyond sea Maine revolted and was 
conquered afresh ; but after this great success came se\ 
petty wars in which William's good fortune came to an end. 
Yet, when England was concerned, it came back again, as the 
great preparations of Cnut came to nothing. William 
also his domestic troubles, the rebellion of one son, the death 
of another, and the death of his wife. And in all this the 
men of the time saw the penalty for the death of Waltheof. 



CHAPTER XII. 

How King William ruled the Land. 

1. William's Government. — We have thus seen how 
a foreign prince won, and how he kept, the kingdom of 
England, and how little, after he had once really won it, 
his rule was disturbed either by revolts at home or by 
attacks from abroad. We now ask, What was the nature 
of his government in England all this time ? The answer 
must be that with which we started at first, namely that 
his government was different both from that of a lawful 
native king and from that of a conqueror who had come in 
without any show of right. William was no wanton op- 
pressor, and he no doubt honestly wished to rule his king- 
dom as well as he could. He even tried to learn English, 
that he might the better do his duty as an English king. 
He professed to rule according to the law of King Edward, 
that is, to rule as well and justly as King Edward had 
done. And in fact he made very few changes in the old 
laws. The changes which began with his reign were mostly 
those gradual changes which could not fail to happen when 
all circumstances were so greatly changed. The laws might 
still be the same ; but their working could not be the same, 
when the king was a stranger, and when all the greatest 
estates and offices had passed into the hands of strangers. By 
the end of William's reign there were very few Englishmen 



WILLIAM'S LA WS. I I 9 

holding great estates ; there was no English earl and only 
one English bishop. Again, William's government was much 
stronger than that of any king who had been before him; he 
was better able to enforce the law, and he did enforce it very 
strictly. The English writers give him all praise for making 
good peace in the land, that is for severely punishing all 
wrong- doers. A king who did this in those days was for- 
given much that was bad in other ways. The special com- 
plaint which men made against William's government was 
that he was greedy and covetous, and laid on heavy taxes 
which men deemed to be wrongful. This is no doubt true ; 
but it is to be remembered that regular taxation was then 
coming in as something new, and that in no age are men 
fond of having their money taken from them. 

2. William's Laws. —William however did make some 
new laws. These laws were solemnly enacted in the regular 

mblies of the kingdom ; but then those assemi 
were gradually changing from gatherings of Englishmen 
into gatherings of Normans. He renewed, as the saying 
went, Edward's Law, with such changes as he said were 
for the good of the English people. Some of these 
changes were made merely for the time, while there was still 
a distinction between English and French. This last is the 
1 commonly used to take in both the Normans and all 
the other French-speaking people whom William had brought 
with him. Erenchmen who had settled in King Edn 
time were to reckon as Englishmen. Normans and English- 
men were to live in peace, but as the Normans were often 
killed privily, | law was made for their protection. If 

the murderer was not to be found, the hundred was to pay. 

And for some purposes each nation was to keep its own law. 

1 English and Normans used, in doubtful cases, to ap 
to the judgement of God; but the Normans sought to find out 



120 HOW KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND. 

the truth by single combat and the English by the ordeal of 
hot iron. William allowed both ways, and ordered that each 
man might keep the custom of his own nation. He forbade 
the slave-trade by which men were sold out of the land, 
chiefly to Ireland. This had been forbidden by earlier kings 
also, but William himself could not wholly get rid of the evil 
practice. He forbade the punishment of death ; criminals 
might be blinded or mutilated, but not hanged or otherwise 
killed. This rule he most strictly observed himself, save 
only in the case of Waltheof. And just at the end of his 
reign, in 1086, in a great assembly at Salisbury, he made what 
was in the end the most important law of all. Every man in 
the land, of whatever other lorpl he might be the man, swore 
to be faithful to King William in all things, even against his 
other lord. Of how great moment this law was we shall see 
presently. 

3. Changes in the Church. — Another law of William's 
had reference to the affairs of the Church. It had hitherto 
been the custom in England that both civil and eccle- 
siastical matters should be dealt with in the general assem- 
blies, both of the whole kingdom and of each shire. In 
these last the earl and the bishop sat together. William 
now ordered that the bishops should hold separate courts 
for Church causes. And all through William's reign Lan- 
franc held many synods of the clergy distinct from the 
general assemblies of the kingdom. In these synods bishops 
and abbots were deposed, and many new canons^ were 
made. This was the time when Pope Gregory the Seventh 
was trying to forbid the marriage of the clergy everywhere. 
In England the secular clergy were very commonly married, 
both the parish priests and the canons in the secular 
minsters. The rule which Lanfranc laid down was that no 
canon should even keep a wife to whom he was already 



AFFAIRS OF THE CHURCH. 12 1 

married; but the parish priests were allowed to keep their 
wives, only the unmarried were not to marry, nor was any 
married man to be ordained. Lanfranc was a monk and a 
favourer of monks; new monasteries were founded, above all 
King William's abbey of the Battle, built, in discharge of his 
vow, on the hill of Senlac, with its high altar on the spot 
where Harold's standard had stood. And monks were put 
into some churches where there had before been secular 
priests. The ecclesiastical rule of William and Lanfranc 
tended on the whole to greater learning and stricter disci- 
pline among the clergy ; but these gains were purchased by 
thrusting strangers into all the chief places of the Church as 
well as of the State. 

4. The New Bishops and Abbots. — We have said 
already that, as the bishops and abbots died, or, when 
there was any pretext for so doing, were deprived, strangers 
were appointed, always to the bishoprics, commonly to 
the abbeys. Some of the foreign abbots were rude or fierce 
men who despised the English. Such was Turold the stern 
abbot of Peterborough, of whom we have already heard ; such 
was Paul of Saint Alban's, who mocked at the old abbots 
and pulled down their tombs. Such too was Thurstan of 
Glastonbury, who, when his monks refused to sing the ser- 
vice after a new fashion, brought soldiers into the church, who 
slew several of them. But for this King William deposed 
him. Hut William's prelates were not as a rule like tl 
Most of the new bishops worked hard, according to their 
light, in building their churches, and reforming their cha: 
and dioceses. Some of them, in obedience to one of I.an- 
franc's canons, moved their sees from smaller towns to greater. 
Thus was the see of Lichfield moved aids 

to Coventry), that of Elmham to Tl ifterwards 

wich), that of Sherborne to Old Salisbury, that of Dorctu 



122 HOW KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND. 

to Lincoln, and, after William's death, that of Wells to Bath. 
Some of the new prelates lived on good terms with their 
English neighbours; there is a document in which Saint 
Wulfstan and his monks of Worcester enter into a bond of 
spiritual brotherhood with several abbots, Norman and 
English, and their monks. But besides this, Saint 
Wulfstan did one good work which was his own. William's 
law against the slave-trade was at first no better kept than 
the same law when it was put forth by earlier kings. The 
men of Bristol still went on selling English slaves to Ireland. 
Bristol was in Wulfstan's diocese. So he went thither many 
times, and often preached to the people against their great 
sin, till they left off sinning, at least for a while. 

5. King William and the Pope. — While King Wil- 
liam helped Lanfranc in all his reforms, he would not 
give up a whit of the authority in the affairs of the Church 
which had been held by the kings who had been before 
him. Both the English kings and the Norman dukes 
were used to invest bishops and abbots by giving them 
the ring and staff, the badges of their office. When Hilde- 
brand, who had so greatly favoured William's attack on 
England, became the famous Pope Gregory the Seventh, he 
tried with all his might to take away this right from the Em- 
peror and other princes ; but to the King of the English he 
never said a word about the matter, and William himself, and 
for a while his successors after him, went on investing the 
prelates just as had been done before. At one time Pope 
Gregory wrote to the King, demanding that the payment of 
a penny from each house, called Romescot or Pe/erpence, 
should be more regularly paid, and not only this, but that 
the King should become his man for his kingdom. To this 
William wrote back that he would pay the money, because 
the kings before him had paid it ; but that, as no King of the 



II //./ 1AM A '/OAT. 

lish before him had ever become the man of the Pope, so 
neither would he. W Dark, not onl\ 

in which William stood up for the rights of h 
against so gr< . . hut also tiie way in * 

he puts himself exactly in the place of the < 
Giving himself out as their lawful successor 
was theirs, but he claims nothing more. 

6. The Imprisonment of Bishop Odo. — There was 
another act of William's whicl how fiillj 1 he 

was that no privilege and no favour should hinder him 
either from carrying out his own will or from 
ever he thought was for the good 01 
Mis brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeui an 1 Earl of E 

so puffed up with pride and cruelty that h 
longer to be borne. We may believe that tl was 

illy displeased with his doings in the North when 

Bent to punish the riot in which Bishop Wakher 
killed. At last, in 10S2, Odo fancied that he was going to be 
made Pope whenever Gregory died, ft] 
great company, or rather an army, in England and 
mandy, and was going to set out for 
then in Normandy ; but he came back 

assembly, and formally accused his brother. He laid that 
Odo's misdeeds could no longer l> 
Wise Men of the land counsel him to do? T 
semblj held its peace. Then th 

. even against his brother; he hade his 
him. But in those days it was thought ft 
p, or indeed am 

Then King William seized hia brother with 

Odo cried out that it was unlawful I 
none but • could judge him. I: 

had told the King what to say I 



124 H 0W KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND. 

that he did not seize the Bishop of Bayeux, but that he did 
seize the Earl of Kent. So, whatever might become of the 
Bishop of Bayeux, the Earl of Kent was kept in prison at 
Rouen. Pope Gregory pleaded earnestly that he might be 
set free ; but William kept him in ward till the day of his 
own death. 

7. The New Forest. — There is no doubt that William 
was always anxious to do justice, whenever so to do did not 
hinder his own plans. And this makes a great difference be- 
tween him and mere oppressors who seem really to like to do 
mischief. But we have seen that he could do very dreadful 
things for the sake of his policy, and after awhile he came to 
do things only less dreadful for the sake of his own pleasure. 
Nearly all men of that time were fond of hunting ; William 
was specially so. For his pleasure in this way he made a forest 
in Hampshire, not far from his capital at Winchester, and, 
after eight hundred years, that forest is called the New Forest 
still. It must be remembered that a, forest does not properly 
mean land all covered with wood. There were sure to be 
wooded parts in a forest, but the whole was not wood. A 
forest is land which is kept waste for hunting, and which is 
put out of the common law of the land, and ruled by the 
special and harsher law of the forest. Very hard punishments 
were decreed against either man or beast that meddled with 
the king's game. Now, to make or enlarge his New Forest, 
William did not scruple to turn tilled land into a wilder- 
ness, to take men's land from them, and to destroy houses 
and churches. Just as men thought that William- lost his 
luck after the death of Waltheof, so men thought that the 
New Forest brought a special curse on his house. Certain 
it is that three of his house, his two sons Richard and Wil- 
liam, and his grandson a son of Robert, all died in a strange 
way in the Forest. 



■ 



DOMESDAY BOOK. 

8. The Great Survey. — One of the greatest acts of V 
Ham's reign, and that by which we come to learn more a 
England in his time than from any other soi - done in 
the assembly held at Gloucester at the Christmas of i c 
Then the King had, as the Chronic I very deep speech 
with his Wise Men/' This u deep speech n in English is in 
French par h •tm nt ; and so we see how our assemblies ( 

by their later name. And the end of the deep speech 
that commissioners were sent through all England, save only 
the bishopric of Durham and the earldom of Northumbei . 
to make a survey of the land. They were q by 

whom every piece of land, great and small, was held 
whom it had been held in King Edward's day, what il 
worth now, and what it had been worth in K: 
day. All this was written in a book kept at Winchester, \ 
men called Domesday Book. It is a most wonderful re 
and tells us more of the state of England just at tin: 
than we know of it for a long time before or after. But 
above all things we see how far the land had passed from 
Englishmen to Normans and other strangers. There 
only a very few Englishmen who ke< ll all 

like those of the chief Normans; but it is quite a mistak 
think that every Englishman was driven out of his 
and home. Crowds of Englishmen keep small \ 
fragments of great ones, sometimes held straight 
King, sometimes of a Norman or an Englishman in Willi 
favour. And when any man, Norman or 
claim against any other man, Norma] 
fairly set down in the book, for the King I 

9. The Oath of Allegiance. - 
portant than the great survey, foil 

the survey was made, and the King knew how all the 
his kingdom was held, he called all the land* 



126 HOW KING WILLIAM RULED THE LAND. 

account to a great assembly at Salisbury in August 1086. 
There they all, of whatever lord they were the men, sware oaths 
to King William and became his men. That is to say, William 
had made up his mind to hinder in his kingdom the evils which 
were growing up in other lands. Elsewhere it was generally 
held that a man was bound to fight for his own lord, even 
against his overlord the king. In this way the kingdom of 
Karolingia or France, and the kingdoms held by the Em- 
perors, broke up into principalities which were practically 
independent. Most surely William himself would have been 
greatly amazed if a man of the Duke of the Normans had 
refused to go against the King of the French. But he took 
care that there should at least be no such questions in the king- 
dom of England. Every man in William's kingdom became 
the King's man first of all, and was to obey him against all 
-other men. There never was any one law made in England 
of greater moment than this. England for a long time had 
been getting more united, when the coming of William 
brought in two sets of tendencies. On the one hand the 
general strength of his government, and the mere fact that 
the land was conquered, did much to make the land yet more 
united. On the other hand, many of William's followers had 
brought with them the new notions which caused other king- 
doms to split in pieces. This wise law settled that the 
first set of tendencies should get the upper hand, and that 
the land should become more united by reason of the 
Conquest. Since William's day no man has ever thought of 
dividing the kingdom of England. 

10. The Last Tax. — The great survey and the oath of 
allegiance were nearly the last acts of William in England. 
All that he did afterwards was to lay on one more heavy tax. 
This was a tax of six shillings on every hide of land, a tax 
which could be both more easily and more fairly raised now 



THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. 

that the survey was made. Men cried out more than ever, 
and altogether it was a sad and strange time* 
bad crops and fires and famines, and many chief men both in 
England and Normandy died. And now the time came for 
the great ruler of both those lands to die also. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
The Two Williams. 

1. King William's Last War. — The way in which 
the Conqueror came by his death was hardly worthy of 
the great deeds of his life. The land between Rouen and 
Paris, on the rivers Seine and Oise, known as the Vexin, 
was a land which had long been disputed between Nor- 
mandy and France. Border quarrels were always going 
on, and just now there were great complaints of inroads 
made by the French commanders in Mantes, the chief 
town of the Vexin, on the lands of various Normans. 
William made answer by calling on Philip to give up to 
him the town of Mantes and the whole Vexin. Philip 
only answered by making jests on William, who was just 
now keeping quiet at Rouen, seeking by medical treat- 
ment to lessen the bulk of his body. Philip said that the 
King of the English was lying in, and that there would be 
a great show of candles at his churching. Then King Wil- 
liam was very wroth, and swore his most fearful oaths that, 
when he rose up, he would light a hundred thousand candles 
at the cost of the French King. So in August 1087, as soon 
as he was able to get up, he entered the Vexin and harried 
the land cruelly. He reached Mantes (August 15), entered 
the town, caused it to be set on fire, and rode about to see 
the burning. At last his horse stumbled, perhaps on the 
burning embers ; he was thrown forward on the tall bow of 



William's sickni \ n, 

his saddle, and r i wound vrhich made liim 

give over. I carried to R I there lay in the 

priory of Saint Gervase outside the i 

2. King William's last Sickness. — He la 
more than three weeks. The chief prelal 
came about him; some of them were skilful 
could tend his body as well as his soul. But t 

that there was no hope, and tuld him th die. 

He then began to make ready for death. He \ 

repentance for all his wrong . for the harrying of 

Northumberland long before and for the burning o: 

just now. He sent money to make good the destruction 

at Mantes, and he sent other money to the chin 

and poor of England. Then he settled tl. 

to his dominions. He said that by ail law Rob 

succeed him in Normandy ; so it mu>: 

woes would come on the land where Robert should rule. 

About England he said that he did not dare to ED 

order; but he wished, if it were God's will, that Wil 

should succeed him, and he sent a letter to Archbishop I 

franc, praying him to crown William, if he thought it i 

do so. To his youngest son Henry he left live thoufl 

pounds in money from his hoard. Robert P 

and now his other sons left him, William to 1 

kingdom, and Henry to look after his money. 1 ':. 

bade all the men, Norman and English, whom he 

in prison to be set fre * he 

said he would not set free; be would Olllj 

more mischief if he were let out But h 

others prayed hard for him, an Will 

the King bade th with the 

3. King William's Death and Burial. on 
September 9, 10S7, th lliam. the Conqi: 



130 THE TWO WILLIAMS. 

of England, died. There was fear and confusion through 
all Rouen; men knew not what to do, now that the man 
who had kept the land in peace was gone. For a while 
the King's body lay stripped and forsaken. But at last 
he was taken to Caen, to be buried in his own minster 
of Saint Stephen without the walls. Then, when the rites 
of burial began, one Asselin the son of Arthur rose and 
said that the ground on which the church was built was his 
and his father's, and he forbade that the body should be 
buried in his soil. So they paid him at once for the grave, 
and afterwards for the whole estate that he had lost. Then 
was King William buried, and a shrine of cunning work- 
manship was made over his grave ; but all is now gone. 

4. William the Red. — The king who was now to suc- 
ceed William the Great was his third son William — his 
second son Richard had died in the New Forest. From 
his ruddy face he was called William Rufus or the Red, 
and sometimes the Red King. His character was a strange 
mixture. He had a large share of his father's gifts; he was 
brave, free of hand, and merry of speech ; and, when he 
chose, he could be both a good captain and a good ruler. 
But he had none of his father's really great qualities ; he 
was a blasphemer of God and a man of the foulest life ; 
without being so cruel in his own person as some other 
princes, he was utterly reckless, and cared not how much 
evil he caused. He was also quite careless of his 
promises, except when he pledged his word as a good knight; 
then he kept it faithfully ; any one who trusted himself to 
his personal generosity was always safe. For we have now 
come to the beginning of what is called chivalry, of which 
William the Red was one of the first professors. He was 
proud and self-willed above all men, and he. had not, like 
his father, any steady purpose about any matter. He was 



CORONATION OF WILLIAM RUFUS. 131 

always beginning undertakings and no: 5 them. Yet 

there is no doubt that he was a man of g 
if he had chosen to use them better. He made a great 
impression on the minds of men at the time, and of no 1 
are there more personal stories told. 

5. Accession of William Rufus. — It does not seem 
that William Rufus was ever regularly chosen king. II 
crossed to England with his father's letter to Lanfranc, 
and on September 26, the Archbishop crowned him at 
Westminster. No one gainsaid his claim ; all men bowed 
to him and sware oaths to him. But it must be remem- 
bered that there was really more to be said for either of 
his brothers than for him. Robert was the eldest son, 
was his father's natural successor in Normandy. And those 
Normans who wished England and Normandy to stay to- 
gether, would of course wish to have Robert for kin_ 
England. On the other hand, if the English had given up 
all thought of a king of their own blood, the natur 

for them was Henry. He alone was a real JEtheEn 
king's son born in the land. But neither Robert nor Henry 
was at hand, and William took the crown quite quietly. 11 
held the Christmas feast at Westminster, and it seems to 
have been then that he gave back the earldom of 
his uncle Bishop Odo. 

6. The Rebellion of Odo. — The new king had I 
only a few months on the throne, when most of the 
Normans openly rebelled against him, meant! 

in his brother Duke Robert. At the head of the r 

were the King's two uncles, Count Robert and 

Odo. Odo was the first beginner of tb r, for 

he found that he was not, as he had hoped to be, the 

King's chief counsellor. Earl 

Geollrey of Coutances, Bishop William of Durl. 



1 33 THE TWO WILLIAMS. 

others of the great men joined them; but Earl Hugh of 
Chester, Archbishop Lanfranc and all the other bishops, 
above all Saint Wulfstan at Worcester, remained faithful. 
Then the King saw that he had nothing to trust to but 
the native English. So he called them to his standard, and 
made promises of good government in every way. Then 
the people flocked to him from all parts, and he found him- 
self at the head of a great English army. The rebels were 
now smitten everywhere ; specially the King with his Eng- 
lishmen beat back the troops that Duke Robert sent to land 
at Pevensey. That is, they beat back a new Norman inva- 
sion on the very spot where the Conqueror had landed. 
Then they took the castle of Rochester, where Odo was, 
and Odo had to come out with shame and to go back to 
Normandy; he never saw England again. Many of the 
rebels lost their lands ; but they afterwards got them back 
again when peace was made between King William and his 
brother Robert. 

7. The End of the Conquest. — William Rufus was 
very far from keeping the promises of good government 
which he made to the native English when he needed 
their help. Yet it would be hard to show that he directly 
oppressed Englishmen as Englishmen ; his reign was rather 
a time of general misrule, which oppressed all classes, 
though undoubtedly the native English must have suffered 
the most. But this war of the year 1088 was the last 
stage of the Norman Conquest. It was the last time 
that Englishmen and Normans, as such, met in battle 
against one another on English soil. And, as far as fighting 
went, the English had the better. In this war Englishmen, 
fighting against Normans, kept the crown of England for a 
Norman King. Thus by this war the Norman Conquest of 
England was in some sort completed and in some sort un- 



\7) OF THE CONQUEST. 

done. It was completed so far as that the Norman b< 
was now firmly established on the English throne. From 
this time no one thought of driving out the kings who came 
of the line of the Conqueror. No one thought again of 
setting up Edgar, though he lived a long time after 
one thought again of asking for help from Denmark. But the 
Conquest was undone so far as that all this was done by 
English themselves, so far as the Norman King was set on 
the throne by English hands. At this point then we shall 
best end our tale of the history of the Conquest, and stop to 
look at the effects which the Conquest had, both at once 
and on the later history of England. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
The Results of the Norman Conquest. 

1. General Results of the Conquest. — We must 
carefully distinguish the immediate effects of the Norman 
Conquest, the changes which it made at the moment, from 
its lasting results which have left their mark on all the 
times which have come after. In many ways these two 
have been opposite the one to the other. It might have 
seemed at the time that the English people had altogether 
lost their national life, their freedom, their laws, their lan- 
guage, and everything that was theirs. But in truth the 
Norman Conquest, which at the time seemed to destroy 
all these things, has actually kept to us all these things — 
except our language — more perfectly than we could have 
kept them if the Norman Conquest had never happened. 
We can see this by comparing the course of our history with 
that of other kindred nations which never underwent anything 
like the Conquest. In no other land have things gone on 
from the beginning with so little real, break as in England. 
From the earliest times till now, England has never been 
without a national assembly of some kind. Our national 
assemblies have changed their name and their form; but 
they have never wholly stopped ; we have never had to begin 
them again as something altogether new. But in many other 
lands the national assemblies stopped altogether, and they 
have had to be set up again as something new in later times, 
very often after the pattern of ours. And so it is with 
many other things, which might have died out bit by bit, 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE CONQUEST. 

if there had never been any Conquest, and which n. 
have been suddenly cut short, if the Conquest had been of 
another kind from what it was. It is the foreign con- 
quest wrought under the guise of law which is the 
to everything in English history. And we shall find that 
the Norman Conquest did not very greatly bring in thi 
which were quite new, but rather strengthened and hast- 
tendencies which were already at work. We shall see many 
examples of this as we go on. 

2. Intercourse with other lands. — One very c 
case of this rule is the way in which England now be 
to have much more to do with other lands than she 
had before. But this was only strengthening 
which was already at work. From the r< 
onwards England was beginning to have more 
do with the mainland. Or rather, whereas 1 
before had to do, whether in war or in peace, almosl 
with the kindred lands of Scandinavia, Germany, and I 
ders, she now began to have much to do with ti. 
speaking people, first in Normandy, then in France it 
The great beginning of this was, as we have alrr 
the marriage of ^Ethelred and Emma. Then came the i 
of their son Edward, with his foreign ways and 
favourites. All this in some sort made thi: r the 

fuller introduction of foreigners and fore the 

Conquest. When the same prince reigned ovei 
Normandy, and when in after times the same } 
not only over England and Normandy, but ov 
large parts of Gaul, men went l\u kwards an 1 t 
from one land to another. If strangers 1. 
England, Englishmen often held high offices in i 
lands. Our kings too, strangers b) 
after they had quite become Englishmen, 



136 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

wives and giving their daughters to foreign princes, far 
more commonly than had been done before. Foreign trade 
too increased ; England had a very old trade with Germany 
and Flanders; this in no way ceased, while a great trade with 
Normandy and other parts of Gaul grew up. And, besides 
the fighting men and others who followed the kings, not a 
few merchants and other peaceful men from other lands 
settled in England. In every way, in short, Britain ceased to 
be a world of its own ; England, and Scotland too, became 
part of the general world of Western Europe. 

3. Effects of the Conquest on the Church. — In 
nothing did this come out more strongly than in the affairs 
of the Church. The English Church was, more strictly 
than any other, the child of the Church of Rome, and she 
had always kept a strong reverence for her parent. But 
the Church of England had always held a greater inde- 
pendence than the other churches of the West, and the 
kings and assemblies of the nation had never given up 
their power in ecclesiastical matters. Church and State were 
one. But from the time of the Conquest, the Popes got 
more and more power, as was not wonderful when the 
Conqueror himself had asked the Pope to judge between 
him and Harold. Gradually all the new notions spread in 
England; the Popes encroached more and more, and laws 
after laws had to be made to restrain them, till the time 
came when we threw off the Pope's authority altogether. 
The affairs of Church and State got more and more distinct ; 
the clergy began to claim to be free from all secular juris- 
diction and to be tried only in the ecclesiastical courts ; the 
marriage of the clergy too was more and more strictly for- 
bidden. All this was the direct result of the Norman 
Conquest. If the Conquest had never happened, it might 
have come about in some other way; but it was in fact 



ITS EFFECTS ON THE CHURCH. 

through the Conquest that it did corn* William the 

Conqueror, like many other great ml tem 

which he himself could work, hut which smaller men < 
not work. In after times the kinga and popes often pi I 
into one another's hands to get their own ends, 
uncommonly at the expense of both clergy and people. 
More than once the whole nation of England, noble 
and commons, had to rise up against Pope and King toge 

4. Foreign Wars. — It was alaoowinj Norman O 
quest that England began to be largi in contin 
wars. Here again, this might very likely have come about in 
some other way; but this was the way in which it did come 
about. As long as Normandy w 

between England and France, England and France could 
hardly have any grounds of quarrel. But when England 
Normandy had one prince, England got id in the quar- 

rels between Normandy and France. England and France 
became rival powers, and the rivalry went on f after 

Normandy had been conquered by France. Then too both 
England and Normandy passed to princes who h 
great possessions in Gaul, and the chief of these, the dad 
Aquitaine, was kept by the English kings long after the low 
Normandy. Thus,through the Norman Conquest, Englan 
came a continental power, mixed up with continental wars and 
politics, and above all, engaged in a long rivalry with I 

5. Effects on the Kingly Power. — One 
of the Norman Conquest was greatly to 

power of the kings. The Norman kinga kept all the 

powers, rights, and revenues which tl. 

had, and they added some new on< >. A king may be 

looked on in two ways. He n 

as the head of the state, of which other men a: 

bers, or else as the chief lord, with ii 



I38 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

the land for his men, holding their lands of him. Both 
these notions of kingship were known in Europe; both 
were known in England ; but William the Conqueror knew 
how to use both to the strengthening of the kingly power. 
Where the king is merely the lord of the chief men, the 
kingdom is likely to split up. into separate principalities, as 
happened both in Germany and in Gaul. William took care 
that this should not happen in England by making his great 
law which made every man the man of the king. But when 
this point was once secured, it added greatly to the king's 
power that he should be personal lord as well as chief of 
the state, and that all men should hold their lands of him. 
y The Norman kings were thus able to levy the old taxes as 
heads of the state, and also to raise money in various ways 
off the lands which were held of them. They could, like 
the old kings, call the whole nation to war, and they could 
further call on the men who held lands of them either to 
do military service in their own persons or to pay money to 
be let off. Thus the king could have at pleasure either a 
national army, or a feudal army, that is an army of men who 
did military service for their fiefs, or lastly an army of hired 
mercenaries. And the kings made use of all three as 
suited them. Another thing also happened. In the older 
notion, kingship was an office, the highest office, an office 
bestowed by the nation, though commonly bestowed on the 
descendants of former kings. But now kingship came to 
be looked on more and more as a possession, and it was 
deemed that it ought to pass, like any other possession, 
according to the strict rules of inheritance. Thus the crown 
became more and more hereditary and less and less elective. 
For several reigns after the Norman Conquest, things so 
turned out that strict hereditary succession could not be 
observed. Still, from the time of the Conquest, the tendency 



CHANGES IN LAW AND GOVERNMENT. 139 

was in favour of strict hereditary succession, and it became 
the rule in the long run. 

6. Effects on the Constitution and Administra- 
tion. — We have already seen that both William the < 
queror and the Norman kings after him made 
direct changes in the law. Nor did they make many formal 
changes in government and administration. They destroyed 
no old institutions or offices, but they set up some 
ones by the side of the old. And of these sometimes the 
old lived on till later times, and sometimes the new. 
sometimes old things got new names, which might n 
us think that more change happened than really did 
in this case again sometimes the old names lived on and 
sometimes the new. Thus the, Normans called the shire 
the county, and the king's chief officer in it, the sheriff, 
called the viscount. Now we use the word county oftener than 
the word shire; but the sheriff is never called niscatm 
which has got another meaning. So, in the - 
of all, the King is still called King by his Old-]- 
but the assembly of the nation, the W\ 
of the Wise Men, is called a Parliament. But this is simply 
because the wise men spoke or i with the I 

as we read before that King William had u very deep 
speech with his Wise Men" before he ordered the jj 
survey. What is much more important than th< 
of name is that the assembly has quite char con- 

stitution. And yet it is truly the same oing 

on ; there has been no sudden break ; < I l>een 

made bit by bit; but we have never been with 
assembly of some kind, and there never v. .lien 

one kind of assembly was abolished and another kind 
in its stead. The greatest change thai 
a short time was that, in the twei 



140 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

Conqueror's reign, an assembly which was almost wholly an 
assembly of Englishmen changed into one which was almost 
wholly an assembly of Normans. But even this change was not 
made all at once. There was no time when Englishmen as a 
body were turned out, and Normans as a body put in. Only, 
as the Englishmen who held great offices died or lost them 
one by one, Normans and other strangers were put in their 
places one by one. Thus there came a great change in the 
spirit and working of the assembly ; but there was little or 
no immediate change in its form. And so it was in every 
thing else. /Without any sudden change, without ever abolish- 
ing old things and setting up new ones, new ideas came 
in and practically made great changes in things which were 
hardly at all changed in form. It is a mistake to think that 
our Old-English institutions were ever abolished and new Nor- 
man institutions set up in their stead. But it is quite true that 
our Old-English institutions were greatly changed, bit by bit, by 
new ways of thinking and doing brought over from Normandy. 
7. Effects of the Conqueror's Personal Character. — 
Besides all other more general causes, there can be no 
doubt that the personal character of William himself had a 
great effect on the whole later course of English history. 
As William had no love for oppression for its own sake, so 
neither had he any love for change for its own sake. He 
saw that, without making any violent changes in English 
law, he could get to himself as much power as he could wish 
for. Both he and the kings for some time after him were 
practically despots, kings, that is, who did according to 
their own will. But they did according to their own 
will, because 'they kept on all the old forms of freedom 
so, in after times, as the kings grew weaker and the na- 
tion grew stronger, life could be put again into the forms, 
and the old freedom could be won back again. A smaller 



EFFECT OF WILLIAM'S OWN CHARACTER. 141 

man than William, one less strong and wise, would 1 
likely have changed a great deal inure. And by so di 
he would have raised far more opposition, and would 
have done far more mischief in the long run. Willi 
whole position was that he was lawful King of the 
English, reigning according to English law. But a smaller 
man than William would hardly have been able at once out- 
wardly to keep that position, and at the same time real' 
do in all things as he thought fit It is largely owing to 
William's wisdom that there was no violent cb 
sudden break, but that the general system of things wen 
as before, allowing this and that to be changed bit by bit in 
after times, as change was found to be needed. 

8. Relations of Normans and Englishmen. — It 
followed almost necessarily from the peculiar nature of 
William's conquest that in no conquest did the conqu* 
and the conquered sooner join together into ont 
No doubt the fact that Normans and English « r all 

kindred nations had something to do with this; but 
union could hardly have been made so speedily 
thoroughly, if it had not been for the peculiar character of 
the conquest made under the form of law. Willia: 
great deal of land from Englishmen and to Norm 

but every Norman to whom he gave land had in some s« 
become an Englishman in order to hold it. He held it 
the King of the English according to the law of 1 
he stepped exactly into the place of the Englishman 
had held the land before him ; he took his 
his burthens, whatever they might be. neith 
He had to obey and to administer English law, 
lish offices, to adapt himself in endless ways to the 
of the land in which he found himself An i. except in 
case of the very greatest noble8, there were men of I 



142 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

English birth by his side, holding their lands as he held his, 
holding offices, attending in assemblies, acting with him in 
every way as members of the same political body. The son 
of the Norman settler, born in the land, often the son of an 
English mother, soon came to feel himself more English 
than Norman. So the two nations were soon mingled to- 
gether, so soon that a writer a hundred years after the Con- 
quest could say that, among freemen, it was impossible to 
say who was English and who was Norman by descent. Of 
course in thus mixing together, the two nations influenced 
one another ; each learned and borrowed something from the 
other. The English did not become Normans; the Normans 
did become Englishmen; but the Normans, in becoming Eng- 
lishmen, greatly influenced the English nation, and brought 
in many ways of thinking and doing which had not been 
known in England before. 

9. Effects of the Conquest on Language. — Above 
all things, this took place in the matter of language. In 
this we carry about us to this day the most speaking 
signs of the Norman Conquest. If the Norman Conquest 
had never happened, the English tongue would doubt- 
less have greatly changed in the course of eight hundred 
years, just as the other tongues of Europe have greatly 
changed in that time. But it could not have changed in 
the same way or the same degree. No other European 
tongue has changed in exactly the same way, because no 
other tongue has had the same causes of change brought to 
bear on it. Our own Old-English tongue, as it was spoken 
when the Normans came, was a pure Teutonic tongue, that 
is, it was as nearly pure as any tongue ever is ; for there is 
no tongue which has not borrowed some words from others. 
So we had, since we came into Britain, picked up a few 
words from the Welsh, and more from the Latin. But these 



EFFECTS ON LANGUAGE. I43 

were simply names of things which we knew nothing about 
till we came hither, foreign things which we called by for 
names. And we had kept our grammar, and what gram- 
marians call the inflexions, that is, the forms and endings of 
words, quite untouched. The Normans, on the other hand, after 
their settlement in Gaul, had quite forgotten their old Danish 
tongue, allied to the English, and, when they came to Eng- 
land, they all spoke French. French is the Romance tongue of 
Northern Gaul, that is, the tongue which grew up there as the 
Latin tongue lost its old form, and a good many Teutonic 
words crept in. The effect of the Norman Conquest on our 
tongue has been twofold. We have lost nearly all our in- 
flexions ; we should very likely have lost most of them if 
there had been no Norman Conquest, for the other Teutonic 
tongues have all lost some or all of their inflexions; but the 
Norman Conquest made this work begin sooner and go on 
quicker. Then we borrowed a vast number of French 
words, many of them words which we did not want at all, 
names of things which already had English names. But 
this happened very gradually. For some while the two lan- 
guages, French and English, were spoken side by side without 
greatly affecting one another. French was the polite spe 
Latin the learned speech, English the speech of the pec 
but for a hundred and fifty years after the Conquest, French 
was never used in public documents. Before ! 
mans in England learned to speak English, and they seem to 
have done so commonly by the end of the twelfth century, 
though of course they could speak French as well. Then 
there came in a French, as distinguished from D in- 

fluence ; French came in as a fashion, and it was not till 
the fourteenth century that English quite won the day; and 
when it came in, it had lost many oi its inflexions, and bor- 
rowed very many French words. And since this 



144 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

gone on taking in new words from French, Latin, and 
other tongues, because we have lost the habit of making 
new words in our own tongue. All these later changes are 
not direct effects of the Norman Conquest; still they are 
effects. The French fashion could never have set in so 
strongly if the French tongue had not been already brought 
in by the Normans. 

10. Effects of the Conquest on Learning and Litera- 
ture. — There can be no doubt that in all matters of learning 
the Norman Conquest caused a great immediate advance 
in England. There had in earlier times been more than 
one learned period in England ; but the Danish wars had 
thrown things back, and it does not seem that Edward, with 
all his love for strangers, did much to encourage foreign 
scholars. But with the coming of William this changed at 
once. Lanfranc and Anselm for instance, the first arch- 
bishops of Canterbury after the Conquest, were the greatest 
scholars of their time. Men of learning and science of all 
kinds came to England, and men in England, both of Nor- 
man and of English blood, took to learning and science. 
We have therefore during the twelfth century a large stock 
of good writers who were born or who lived in England. 
But they wrote in Latin, as was usual then and long after 
with learned men throughout western Europe ; they there- 
fore did nothing for the encouragement of a native literature. 
Still men did not leave off writing in English ; the English 
Chronicle goes on during the first half of the twelfth century, 
and small pieces, chiefly religious, were still written. " But the 
Norman Conquest had the effect of thrusting down English 
literature into a lower place ; even when it was commonly 
spoken, it ceased to be either a learned or a polite tongue. 
On the other hand, the newly-born French literature took 
great root in England. It was about the time of the Conquest 



EFFECTS 01 MATURE AND Al 

that men in Northern Gaol found out that the French tongue 

which they talked h 

which th< that it « rench 

ell as to Bpeak it. 'I 
oldest books of most Lingua. 

Frencli verse flourished greatly amon both 

in Normandj an J in J 

man dukes, and specially of the Con 
of England. Others, who were settl 
began to love their new land, looks of . and 

British history and legend. Thus, for a long time after 
the Conquest, there was much ing on in I 

in all three langi Many Fl ^ins- 

tated into English, and some 
But all this, though it Bfa 
work. town the 

the land for b 

11. Effects of the Conquest on Art.— In 
not much art in Western E 
Books were illuminated, and thei 

sculpture in churches, but thi be now 

thou, k. Both in 1 

the art of embroidery Been 

hardly art in any I But in the art of buil 

Norman Conques: When 

. of building, we have mainly to do with - 
nonly of 
and 

built thr« 
manner of th 
built evcrvwli 

strike out 



I4<5 THE RESULTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

saking the old Roman models with their round arches, they 
devised new local styles in different parts. Thus one form of 
what is called Romanesque architecture arose in Italy, another 
in Southern Gaul, another in Northern Gaul, and so on. 
The Normans of William's day were great builders, and the 
Romanesque style of Northern Gaul grew up chiefly in 
Normandy, and is commonly called Norman. In Edward's 
day this new style came into England among other Norman 
fashions, and under William it took firmer root. The new 
prelates despised the English churches as too small, and they 
rebuilt them on a greater scale, and of course in the new 
style. For a while the old style which England had in 
common with the rest of Western Europe was still used in 
smaller buildings; but by the end of the eleventh century 
the Norman style had taken full root in England, and in the 
twelfth century it grew much richer and lighter. And as 
stone building came more and more into use, the style 
spread to houses and other buildings. 

12. Effects of the Conquest on Warfare. — Military 
architecture, the building of castles and other strong places, 
is in some sort a part of the history of the building 
art, no less than the building of churches and houses. 
Still it has a character and a history of its own. In this 
matter, and in all matters which had to do with warfare, the 
Norman Conquest made the greatest change of all. In 
England men could fence in a town with walls, but they had 
no strong castles. Their strong places were great mounds 
with a wooden defence on the top. But the Normans 
brought in the fashion of building castles, as we have seen 
in the history of Edward's reign. They sometimes built 
lighter keeps on the old mounds; sometimes they built 
massive strong towers ; and in either case they were fond 
of surrounding them with deep ditches. These were the 



EFFECTS ON WARFAR 

types which the Normans brought in, ami they grew int< 
elaborate times. Thu 

with castles, and warfare took mainly the : 
and besieging them r the Norman Con*, 

hear for a long time much more of sieges, and much less 
of battles in the l : . while in 

much more of battles than of neges. Ti. 
brought their own way of fighting into England, and 
made great changes in English armies. Before the I 
we had no horsemen and very fei - ; from I 

we have both, and the old array goes out of use. Ye: 
sometimes read of the Norman knights getting d 
their horses and fighting with swords i In Old- 

English fashion. And, as the archers came to be the strongest 
part of an English army, and that which was thought specially 
English, it was in one way a going back to tin te of 

things. The weapon was ci but, in dm 

horsemen were most thought of, a stout body of fuot was 
still the strength of an English army. 

13. Summary. — Thus we see the special way in which 
the Norman Conquest, owing to its own :id to 

the personal character of William, acted upon I 
did not destroy or abolish our old laws or institution- 
influencing, it gradually cl. ind in the en 

And in this way the Conquest worked in the end for good. 
We have really kept a more direct con: 
times, without any sudden break « 
dred nations which have never in the sai: 
quered by strangers. There has 
has been all bit by bit, with no gen- 
ticular time. We will now, in 

more particularly how ti. Mes \sorked in I 

history o[ England. 

l a 



CHAPTER XV, 
The Later History. 

1. The Norman Kings. — William Rufus began his 
reign as a Norman king of England only; Robert held 
the duchy of Normandy. But William got, first part and 
then the whole, of Normandy into his hands, and he 
afterwards warred with France. Here then is the beginning 
of our French wars, wars which the French writers from 
the very beginning speak of as wars of the English against 
the French. William Rufus* reign was one of great op- 
pression and wrong, and in his time, under his minister 
Randolf Flambard, the new customs about the holding 
of land got put into a definite shape. At his death in 
noo Normandy and England were again separated for a 
while, for Robert again took his duchy, while Henry was 
chosen King of the English. As he was the only one of 
the Conqueror's children who was in any sense English, the 
native English were strongly for him, and helped him to 
keep the crown, when the Normans again wished for Robert. 
This is the last time that we hear of the English and Nor- 
mans in England acting as separate classes of people. The 
reign of Henry, which lasted till 1135, was the time in which 
the two races were gradually joined together. Henry also 
pleased the English by marrying Edith or Matilda, the 
daughter of Malcolm King of Scots and Margaret the sister 
of the iEtheling Edgar. Thus his children sprang in the 



THE NORMA X KINGS. 149 

female line from the old kings. Then Robert ruled Nor- 
mandy so ill that many oi wished to get rid 
of him; so in 1106 King Henry won the duchy at the battle 
of Tinchebrai. This was just forty years after William the 
Great had won England, and men began to say that things 
were now turned round. Henry's son, William the ^Etheling, 
died before him. He therefore wished his crown to go to his 
daughter Matilda, the widow of the Emperor Henry the 
Fifth, whom he married to Count Geoffrey of Anjou. For 
the rule to pass to a woman was a strange thing both in 
England and in Normandy. So when Henry died, men 
chose his sister's son Stephen of Blois. Steph nuch 
loved by men of all races, but he had not strength to r 
in those times. The friends of the Empress mse O] 
him, and through the whole of Stephen's days, till 1 
there was such a time as England never saw before or since. 
All law vanished, and there was nothing but bloodshed and 
plunder. Meanwhile Count Geoffrey conqueiv ml v. 
At last it was settled that Stephen should keep the cr 
for life, but that the son of Geoffrey and Matilda. II< 
now Duke of the Normans, should reign after him. 

2. Henry of Anjou. — Duke Henry soon succeeded 
Stephen, and with him a new time began. He inlk 
Normandy and Anjou; he took England by the agreement 
with Stephen ; and before he became king he had mai 
Eleanor, Countess of Poitou and Duchess of Aqui: 
who brought with her all south-western Gaul. 1 
King of the English became a great prince on the main- 
land, and was far more powerful in Gaul than 
the King of the French. Nun; 

became parts of a vast dominion, the ruler of which was 
in no way either Norman or English 1 
descent. Yet, as he was English by fern 

l 3 



150 THE LATER HISTORY. 

tried to see in him a representative of the old kings. In 
this state of things all the natives of England, of whatever 
race, began to draw closer together, and still more so under 
Henry's sons, when a fashion set in of favouring men who 
were altogether strangers, neither English nor Norman. This 
reign was the time of the famous Archbishop Thomas, son 
of Gilbert Becket. He was born of Norman parents in Eng- 
land in Henry the First's reign, and he was the first man 
born in the land who became archbishop after the Conquest. 
We are most concerned with him here, because he shows 
how the two races were now joined together. Thomas 
throughout feels and speaks as an Englishman, and every- 
body looks on him as such. Henry the Second was one of 
our greatest kings, the first since the Conquest who was 
really a lawgiver. A great deal of our later law dates from 
lis time, and it is all law made for an united nation, without 
distinction of Normans and English. It is not clear whether 
Henry himself spoke English ; but he certainly understood 
it, and it was commonly spoken by men of both races in his 
time. Henry also increased the greatness of his kingdom by 
establishing a fuller supremacy over Scotland and by be^ 
ginning the conquest of Ireland. 

3. The Sons of Henry. — After Henry in 1189 came 
his son Richard. He was born in England, but he was 
really the least English of all our kings. He was only 
twice in England during his reign, both times for a very 
little while. He first came to be crowned, and afterwards 
in 1 194 he came to take his crown again. For he went 
to the crusade, and on his way back he was kept in prison 
by the Emperor Henry the Sixth. To him he did homage 
for something, as Harold did to William, and some say that 
it was for the crown of England that he did homage. The 
rest of his reign he was chiefly fighting in Gaul ; but while 



THE LOSS OF NORMANDT, 



1 ".I 



he was away, England was ruled by his ministers. His first 
chief minister was his chancellor William Longchamp, Bishop 
of Ely. He came from Normandy, and he despised and 
mocked Englishmen in every way. But the name of English- 
man now took in all men born in the land, and we find 
another bishop, also born in Normandy, speaking of it as a 
strange and shameful thing that Bishop William could speak 
no English. So the nation, under the King's brother Earl 
John, rose and drove out the foreign chancellor. In the 
later part of Richard's reign the land was better ruled by 
his minister Archbishop Hubert. On Richard's death in 
i Earl John succeeded quietlv in Normandv, and was 
then elected King in England. But in Anjou'the notion 
red.tary right had taken deeper root, and there men 
were for Richard's nephew Arthur, because his father Geof- 
frey was John's elder brother. In England a nephew had 
always been passed over in such cases, and John's election 
was quae lawful. King Philip of France took Arthur's side, 
but Arthur was taken by John and, there is little doubt, was 
murdured by him in I202 . Then Philip gathered a court 
of peers and declared that John had by this crime forfeited 
all the lands that he held of the crown of France. To carry 
out this decree Philip, in 1203-4, conquered all continental 
-Normandy; only the islands clave to their duke, and they 
have stayed with the English kings ever since. So our Qu 
still holds the true Normandy, the land which remain 
man, while the rest of the duchy became French. Philip 
took Anjou and the other Angevin lands; but not 
Aquitaine, the duchy of Queen Eleanor, who was .till \W 
Thus John and his successors lost continental Norman 
hut kept Aquitaine. 

1. Efiects of the loss of Normandy. - This final 
anon of England and Normandy marks one of 



152 THE LATER HISTORY. 

chief stages in our story. If any un-English feelings still 
lingered in the heart of any Englishman of Norman descent, 
they quite died out now that England was the only country 
of all Englishmen, and Normandy had become a foreign 
and hostile land. While the first Angevin kings held their 
great dominion in Gaul, though England was their greatest 
and highest possession, we cannot say that it was in any way 
the head or centre, or that their other lands were dependen- 
cies of England. But now that the King of England held 
only the duchy of Aquitaine in the further part of Gaul, that 
duchy was distinctly a dependency of England, and it was 
always leading our kings into quarrels with France. Thus 
the rivalry between England and France, which began out 
of the union between England and Normandy, went on after 
Normandy was again joined to France. Thus both the 
foreign and the domestic position of England was fixed by 
the loss of Normandy. It is henceforth again a kingdom in- 
habited by an united English people, but a kingdom holding 
a large distant dependency as a fief of the French crown, and 
made thereby the special rival of France. 

5. The Nation and the Kings. — It may seem strange 
that, just at this moment, when the chief outward signs 
of the Norman Conquest were swept away, and when the 
Normans in England had become thoroughly good English- 
men, things should in one point seem to go back. The 
thirteenth century, to which we have now come, is the 
time when the French tongue came into use for official 
documents. In old times men had used either English 
or Latin. After the Conquest English gradually died out, 
and for a while we have Latin only. Now French gra- 
dually comes in, and we have Latin and French. Thus, 
just when the English tongue was again coming to the 
front, it was again driven back. But this increased use of 






EARL SIMON AND KING EDWARD. 

French was a mere fashion, owing very much to the [ 
influence which France and the French tongue bad jusl 

over all parts of Europe. And now that the whole nation 
was united, it was a mere fashion, and not a badge of con- 
quest. But while the nation got more English, the 1. 
got more foreign. John (u 99-1 21 6) filled the land with 
foreign mercenaries, and became the man of the Po; 
nation wrung the Great Charter from him, and this ma: 
great stage. Long after the Conquest, whenever there 
any bad rule, men called for the law of King Edward But 
now we hear no more of the law of King Edward ; the Great 
Charter gave all that had been asked for under that n 
Under John's son Henry the Third ( u 1 the land 

was eaten up by strangers and plundered by the Popes. 
Then the nation joined together more than ever under 
Simon of Montfort. Oddly enough, he rth a French- 

man in the strictest sense ; but he inherited English es: 
and he became a good Englishman, like King Cnut and 
Archbishop Anselm. Under him and under the next king 
Edward, (1272-1307) our national assemblies, now called / 
h'aments, began to take their present shape, with an 
House of Commons chosen by the shires and towns. 
6. King Edward the First. — King Edward, the 
of our later kings, and the first since the Conqi: 
bore an English name, was in his own day called 
the Third or Fourth, as he really was; but a: 
he came to be called Edward the First, afl the Brst of the 
name since the Conquest. Now at I 

English king, whose object was the \ and 

at home and abroad. He established tl 
England over Wales and Scotland more thoroughly than 
ever. Wales was now joined to England and « 
incorporated with it ; but the :ion of Scotland led 



154 THE LATER HISTORY. 

to its complete independence. Like Henry the Second, 
King Edward was a great lawgiver ; and from his day we 
may say that we had got back again our old laws and free- 
dom in shapes better suited to the times. All signs of the 
Norman Conquest may now be said to have passed away, 
except the use of the French tongue. King Edward spoke 
English well, and much English was written in his time ; and, 
when he was at war with France, he gave out that the French 
king wished to invade England and wipe out the English tongue. 
Still French went on as a fashion, and became more than 
•ever the language of official writings. 

7. The Wars with France. — The last traces of French 
influence in England were finally got rid of during the 
great war with France which began under Edward the 
First's grandson Edward the Third (t 327 -1377). He 
claimed the crown of France through his mother, and a 
long war followed, which in 1360 was ended by the peace 
of Bretigny. By this Edward gave up his claim to France, 
but he kept the duchy of Aquitaine, the town of Calais which 
he had conquered, and the county of Ponthieu, not as fiefs of 
the crown of France, but as wholly independent dominions. 
Then the French broke the peace ; the war began again, and 
England lost nearly everything except Calais, Bourdeaux, 
and Bayonne. But under Henry the Fifth (14 13-1422) the 
war again began with vigour. He conquered Normandy, and 
made a peace by which he was to succeed to the crown of 
France. He died just too soon for this ; but his son Henry 
the Sixth (1422-1460) succeeded in name to France as well 
as to England, and was crowned at Paris. But in his day the 
English were driven, first out of France, then out of Normandy, 
and then out of Aquitaine (1453) ; so tnat England lost both 
the old inheritance and the new conquest. Nothing was 
kept but Edward the Third's conquest of Calais, which was 



LAST TRACES OF FRENCH INFLUENCE. I "' 

not lost till 1558. These long wars became more and more, 
national wars of England against France. Edward the Third 
indeed, who had been brought up by a French mother, 
seems to have acted less as an English king than as a 
French prince claiming the French crown. But the war 
was quite national on the part of his subjects, and Henry 
the Fifth was an English king in every sense. These 
long wars with France naturally gave a blow to the use of 
French At home, as being the speech of the enemy. English 
quite gained the upper hand again in the course of the 
fourteenth century. Henry the Fifth even had ministers who 
could not speak French, and who therefore, in a conference 
with the French ministers, demanded that they should use 
Latin, as the common language of Western Christendom. 
Yet such is the power of habit that acts of parliament were 
written in French till quite late in the fifteenth century, and on 
some solemn occasions, as when the Queen gives her assent 
to an act of parliament, the French tongue is used still. 

8. Summary. — Thus all things, the reign of Henry the 
First, the Angevin dominion and the break-up of that dominion, 
the un-English reigns of John and Henry the Third and the 
English reign of Edward the First, the long war with France, 
its victories and its defeats, all helped, in their several v. 
to undo foreign influences in England and to make the land 
more and more English. We have in fact advanced by going 
back. All the best changes in our laws, institutions, and 
customs, have been really returns, under new forms, to our 
oldest ways of all. We have thus got rid of the effects of the 
Norman Conquest; but it has been by the help of the 
Norman Conquest itself that we have been able to get rid 
of them. The Conquest did in short give the old life and 
the old freedom a new start. It hindered them from dj 
out or going to sleep. Men had always something to strive 



I $6 THE LATER HISTORY. 

for and struggle against ; and so we were able to keep and to 
reform without ever destroying and building up afresh. All 
this came of the special nature of the Norman Conquest 
of England as it was explained at the beginning. But the 
work was greatly helped by the fact that the Normans were 
after all disguised kinsmen, and it was helped still more 
by the personal character of their leader, by the strong will 
and far-seeing wisdom of William the Great himself. 



»/3/oo 



Cfcurenc-on (pteee Settee. 



ip. 1-6 



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